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Columbia Ciniversitp 
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LIBRARY 


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“2h 


HISTORY 


OF 


LATIN CHRISTIANITY; 


“INCLUDING THAT OF 


THE POPES 


TO 


THE PONTIFICATE C: NICOLAS Y.. 


By HENRY HARTY MILMAN, D.D., 


DEAN OF ST. PAUL’S. 


IN EIGHT VOLUMES. 


VOLUME I. 


ee ΞΘ ΩΝ ΗΝ ἃ 


‘ COL.COLL. § 

LIRRARY. 

N.YORK, - 
: 


TORK: 


SHELDON AND COMPANY. 


BOSTON: GOULD AND LINCOLN. 
M DCCC LXIl. 


ἧς ᾿ ee ΠΟ 1 
Ἂ VRERE VEU 
YAARGTS 


__- RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE : 
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 


ss Ἢ. 0. HOUGHTON. 


HISTORY 
% i ao OF 


CHRISTIANITY, 


ISU 


- 


PREFACE 


TO 


THE SECOND EDITION. 


In this edition I have carefully revised the whole ; 
but the corrections which I have thought it necessary 
to make are in general confined to the style and 
language. Excepting in a few instances, I have not 
myself detected any important errors or inaccuracies 
as to the facts in the history; neither have such, as 
far as I know, been pointed out by friendly or un- 
friendly critics —not indeed that I have any right to 
say that I have met with unfriendly critics. The ad- 
ditions which 1 have made—#in some cases derived 
from older books, which had not fallen in my way, but 
chiefly from books published since the appearance of 
the first edition—are almost entirely confined to the 
notes. Among these, besides the ‘ Life of Moham- 
med,” by Dr. Sprenger, I may specially name one 
or two original pieces in the new volume of Pertz, 
ςς Monumenta Germanize;” the ‘“‘Chronicon Placen- 
tinum,”’ from the British Museum; and the curious 
documents relating to the ‘‘ Friends of God,” published 
by Dr. Carl Schmidt. 


6 [8] ce 
9192365 


PREFACE 


TO 


THE FIRS f EDEriION: 


Tue History of Latin Christianity is a continuation 
of “The History of Christianity to the Extinction of 
Paganism in the Roman Empire.” But Latin Chris- 
tianity appears to possess such a remarkable historic 
unity, that I have thought fit, in order to make this 
work complete in itself, to trace again its origin and 
earlier development, and to enter in some respects with 
greater fulness, yet without unnecessary repetition, into 
its history during the first four centuries. On one 
extremely dark part of that history a book but recently 
discovered has thrown unexpected light. 

The sentence of Polybius which describes the unity, 
and the plan of his History of Republican Rome, might 
be adopted by the historian of the Rise and Progress 
of Christian Rome. Ὄντος γὰρ ἑνὸς ἔργου καὶ θεάματος 
ἑνὸς τοῦ σύμπαντος, ὑπὲρ τούτου γράφειν ἐπικεχειρήκαμεν" τοῦ, 
πῶς καὶ πότε, καὶ διὰ τί πάντα τὰ γνωριζόμενα μέρη τῆς οἴκου- 
μένης ὑπὸ τὴν Ρωμαίων δυναστείαν ἐγένετο. ----Ἰ. iil. C. 1. 


-ς The work which we have undertaken being one, the 


PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. Vil 


whole forming one great design, how, when, and by 
what means all the known world became subject to 
the Roman rule.” Though the great sphere of Latin 
Christianity was Western Europe, yet, during the first 
seven or eight centuries, it is so mingled up with the 
religious history of the Greek empire; the invasion of 
Western Europe by the Mohammedans, and the Cru- 
sades, so involved it again in the affairs of the East ; 
that, in its influence at least, it extended to the limits 
of the known world. 

My aim has been to write a history, not a succession 
of dissertations on history ; to give with as much life 
and reality as I have been able, the result, not the 
process, of inquiry. This, where almost every event, 
every character, every opinion has been the subject of 
long, intricate, too often hostile controversy, was a task 
of no slight difficulty. Where the conflicting author- 
ities have seemed to be nearly balanced, I have some- 
times, but rarely, admitted them into the text, not 
desiring to speak with certainty, where certainty ap- 
peared unattainable ; in general I have reserved such 
discussions, when inevitable, for the notes. Even in 
the notes I have endeavored to avoid two things — a 
polemic tone and prolixity. 1. --- 1 have cited the 
names of modern writers, in general, only when their 
observations have been remarkable in themselves, as 
original, or as characteristic of the progress of opinion. 
IJ.— I have usually contented myself with quoting the 
authority which after due consideration I have thought 


vill PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 


it right to follow, instead of occupying a large space 
with concurrent or conflicting statements. Nothing 
can be more easy, now that we possess such admirable 
manuals of ecclesiastical history (especially the inval- 
uable one of Gieseler), than to heap together to im- 
measurable extent citations from ancient authors or the 
opinions of learned men. I notice this solely that I 
may not be suspected either of the presumption of 
having neglected the labors, or of want of gratitude 
for the aid, of that array of writers who — from the 
Magdeburg Centuriators, Baronius and his Continua- 
tors, through the great French scholars, ‘Tillemont, 
Fleury, Dupin; the Germans, Mosheim, Schroeck, 
Neander, and countless others (where, alas! are the 
English historians of those times Ὁ) — have wrought 
with such indefatigable industry on the annals of Chris- 
tianity. 1 have studied compression and condensation, 
rather than fulness and copiousness, simply in order to 
bring the work within reasonable compass. 


PREFACE TO VOLUME IV. 


FIRST EDITION. 


I cannot offer the concluding volumes of the 
History of Latin Christianity without expressing my 
grateful sense of the kind and liberal manner in which 
the former portion of the work has been generally re- 
ceived. In these volumes I trust that I have not fallen 
below my constant aim — calm and rigid impartiality ; 
the fearless exposure of the bad, full appreciation of 
the good, both in the institutions and in the men who 
have passed before my view. I hope that I may aver 
without presumption that my sole object is truth— 
truth uttered in charity; and where truth has ap- 
peared to me unattainable from want of sufficient 
authorities, or from authorities balanced or contradic- 
tory, I have avoided the expression of any positive 
opinion. I am unwilling to claim the authority of 
history for that for which there is not historical evi- 
dence. I would further remind the reader that if the 
course of affairs during these ages should appear dark, 
at times almost to repulsiveness, still in the dreariest 
and most gloomy period of Christian history there was 


x PREFACE TO VOL. IV., FIRST EDITION. 


always an undercurrent of humble, Christian goodness 
flowing on, as the Saviour himself came, “ without 
observation,” the light of which we can discern but by 
faint and transitory glimpses. 

Only one book, as far as I know, has appeared since 
the publication of the first part of my work, which 
has further elucidated any of the subjects treated in 
those volumes — the ‘“ Life of Mohammed,” by Dr. 
Sprenger. After the perusal of that work, so much 
more full than any former history on the earlier and 
more authentic traditions of the Prophet, I have the 
satisfaction to find that though I might be disposed to 
add a few sentences, I find nothing in my own more 
brief and rapid sketch to alter or to retract. More- 
over (I write with diffidence), it appears to me that 
Dr. Sprenger has hardly drawn the line, if it can be 
drawn, between the Historical and the Legendary in 
the life of Mohammed. I cannot but think that the 
Koran, after all, is the one safe and trustworthy au- 
thority for the life, the acts, and the aims, of the 
founder of Islam. 


INTRODUCTION. 

A.D PAGE 
DESIGN AND PLAN OF THE WORK: "τ τ τ 7111. 19 
CuronoLoGy oF First Four CENTURIES: "τ τ. 82 

eae es 
BOOK I. 
CHAPTER If. 
BEGINNING OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY. 
Roman Pontificate: +--+ + essss see κ εκ testers eeeee 41 
Epochs in Latin Christianity: +++-+++-+>+++++++ 42-47 
Growth of Christianity in Rome---+-+++-+++++++5 41 
Obscurity of Bishop of Rome--+-++++++++es++e++ 50 
67 Persecution of Nero----++-+++seeeeeseeeeectccees 52 - 
95 of Domitian: -:+-+ss+ssseseceeees sr cceecees 1b. 

114 of Trajan — Ignatius of Antioch-----++--+---- 53 
Church of Rome Greek------ +--+ eeeseeeeeeeees 54- 
African origin of Latin Christianity: ---+-++++++++ 57 
Church of Rome centre of Christianity----+++-++-++- ib. 

of Christian controversy---+-+++++++++sse+5 59 
Judaizing Christianity — The Clementina- --------- 60 
196 Pope Victor — Quarto-deciman controversy:----+-> 64 
180-193 Reign of Commodus — Marcia-----++--++++++++++ 65 
Montanism «++. ee sscce eee st cece ae see nenses 68 
Monarchianism: +--+: +sescseccsess ns sercestcene 70 
Hippolytus Bishop of Porto----:+esescesecceccee 74 
201-219 Pope Zephyrinus ΟΡ ΤΥ ποτ 75 
Pope CHP iisnidoddo Cdn odbc dna ond τ ὉΠ }τ|: τ 4.0 0 ib. 

235-247 Persecution of Maximin — Decian persecution: - - - - 80 — 


CONTENTS 


OF 


THE FIRST VOLUME. 


xii CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 


AD. PAGE 
Cyprian of Carthage SOM nO οἷ Ὁ ὦ ΠΣ EMO OAOnS 82 
254 Novatus — Novatian — Cornelius of Rome — The 
Lapsi cen m meee ener ccc es eres esr ees er scene 1b. 
Cyprian’s unity of the Church: +--+ -++++++++eerees 86 
Dispute between Rome and Carthage: ----+-+---+-- 88 
258 Death of Cyprian — of Pope Xystus----++++++++- 90 
259-304 Dionysius — Marcellinus — Marcellus: ----+-++++-+ 91 
CHAPTER II. 
RoME AFTER THE CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE. 
312 Conversion of Constantine — Pope Silvester------ 93 
Donation — Edict of Milan-----+-+++-++eeeeeees 95 
824-334 Foundation of Constantinople — Division of the 
empire ποτ /sife/eiaussiehelieficyelslicns: ΠΟ 56 Ὁ 96 
Latin Christianity in Rome, and the West------- 97 
325 Trinitarian controversy — 1st period — Council of 
INf(EEE Ibe O OO Ad CODUO OH IAC Oba OGDOD OO AC Ὁ ὦ 98 
347 2d period — Council of Sardica--.--++++-+- 101 
352 Pope Liberius— Council of Arles — of Milan---- 102 
357 Felix Antipope — Constantius in Rome--------- 104 
867 Damasus and Ursicinus-+-+-++++++e+eeeeeeeeee {ΠῚ 
Monasticism in Rome — Saint Jerome------++++- 112 
384-398 Pope Siricius — First Decretal---+++++++++++++- 119 
Celibacy of the clergy sijelo.» \aledehocs: ekele [onl =iellenehniatetayela\ 120 
-- --ς-- - 
BOOK II. 
CHAPTERI. 
Innocent I. 
Rome centre of the West+-+++++s+eeerseeeeeces 126 
Succession of St. Peter — Unity of the Church--- 128 
09. I isbatolasin gsc coco Co mom amcode cv cnuActanoyoeac 134 


404 Innocent and Chrysostom: +++++++eeereeeeeeeees 139 


CONTENTS OF VOL I. 


A.D. 

405 Siege of Rome by Alaric— by Rhadagaisus — 
Stilicho αὐ ον πὲ sce) οἱ opal eter ὁ, δἵ αἵ οἱ δ᾽ ehsiinim atoll meh. s Vale isin 

410 Capture by Alaric — Innocent absent---+----+--- 


Restoration of Rome — Greatness of the bishop: - - 


CHAP THR EE: 
PELAGIANISM. 


Pelagianism — Pelagius in the East-+++-+-+++++++-- 
Origin of controversy Se ee i el 
Augustinianism Ὁ δα ὦ οὐ δ δ wi wis) nl Sine) alaile 0 Φ᾽ ἀνά δὶ δὶ ᾧ ὁ ἐν θ ὦ το ὁ « 
Sacerdotal system----+++++++eeesteeeeeeeeeees 
Transmission of original sin--+++++++++ereerrees 
417 Death of Pope Innocent I. — Zosimus.--+--+---- 
418 Council of Carthage — Zosimus retracts-++++-+++> 
Julianus of Eclana----+-++--++++seee cece et ceeee 
Semi-Pelagianism — Cassianus:++++++++++++++e+- 


CHAP TER LEE: 
NESTORIANISM. 


Nestorianism weer meee ere rc nsec οὁοοφφ 6.658. “65.699 

418 Death of Zosimus — Disputed election - - - - τ τ τ τ 5: 
419 Edict of Honorius — Boniface Pope — Celestine I.- 
428 Nestorius at Constantinople: ----+++++++++++-++> 
; Cyril of Alexandria: ++: e+essessseeeeecececnces 
Persecution of Jews — Hypatia -+++++++++++++++> 
Cyril against Nestorius: - “Ὁ -+seesesceceerer cece 
Both parties look to Rome — Pope Celestine: ----- 

430 Council of Βοιμηθ- - - “τ τ τ τ 5 5 Ὑ κεν rr κε κκ εν κεν 
430 Nestorius excommunicated-+-+++++++++ereeereee: 
431 Council of Ephesus — General Councils------+---- 
Memnon of Ephesus — Juvenal of Jerusalem: -- -- - 
Decree of Council — Arrival of Syrian Bishops: - - - 
Violent contest — Constantinople ----++---+++-++: 
Council of Chalcedon — Pulcheria----+-+-++++--+ 
Nestorius abandoned----+2e+-+eseereeeecrcerese 
Treaty Of Peace... ese σ᾽ οἷοι ας κα οὐ διὸ ccc svcccencrece 
Nestorianism proscribed τάφῳ ἃ Κι} lefateleve melee sieve 


ΧΗΣ 


PAGE 


χὶν CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 


CHAPTER IV. 


LEO THE GREAT. 


A.D. PAGE 
440 Teo the Great =: 2-05 sce cence cess scene censcess 253 
Character of Leo — Sermons:----+--++-++-++e+-+++: 254 
The Manicheans at Rome-----+++++++eceseseeee 259 
Affairs’ of Africa's < τον τερον το βτ τος ccs secs εἰς . 261 
Affairs of Gaul — Hilarius of Arles -----+--+++-: 269 
Affairs of Spain — Priscillianism---+-++--+++++++- 276 
Illyricum —— fie Jiao So bono o Goda 65 σοι σα σ Ὁ 279 
Eutyches — Eutychianism- «+--+ 5 5 Ὁ 6 τ esses eee es 281 


449 Robber Synod of Ephesus — Death of Flavianus-- 286 
451 Council of Chalcedon — Condemnation of Dios- 


COTUS <2 es cece mre sean 6.6.6 cc 5 Ὁ οἷς «εἷς κ' Ὁ, οἷς 991 
Coequality of Constantinople and Rome---------- 296 
452 Attila— Embassy of Leo to Attila-----++-++++-+- 301 
455 Invasion of Genseric — Capture and pillage of Rome 303 
457-461 The Emperor Majorian------+-+++++++-e+e cece 308 
Three founders of Latin Christianity — Jerome, Am- 
brose, Augustine SOOO ODO os OOOO mono oS 809 
---Ὁ.---- - 
BOOK III. 
CHAPTER I. 
MonopHysirism. 
Mon ophysitism mp letere δ 14 50 1615 ἀ ἰδῆς, wtadwan τ π ας (ete ite fete corel 812 
468 Pope Simplicius — Close of the Western Empire-- 314 
Whurehwinthew baste προ ore sataietenstelctereialsteheteraieneieiens 815 
Simeon Stylites δ᾽ οοῖς te) e}in oione fe\etistsleiansie/s} otaleheloteislcitotans 318 
457-474 Revolutions in Constantinople— Death of Marcian 320 
Zeno expelled by Basiliscus---+-++++++++eeeeees 321 
499 VElenoticons Of Geno's is © orto elelel sto) atei(oletoNeleiaslatateletel 323 
Question of Roman supremacy: +++++++-+++++++++ 324 


483 Death of Pope Simplicius — Decree of Odoacer--- 327 
Felix III. Pope — Excommunicates Acacius of Con- 
stantinople OO HOCMMOGO GO OU 206 6400 πο ας 328 


A.D. 
484 


495 
505-6 


510 
513 
514 


492 


496 
498 


496 


CONTENTS OF VOL. I. XV 


PAGE 
Acacius excommunicates Pope Felix-..... cove oe 331 
Schism of forty VEATS+ sss cree reece ees cere πο ab. 
Four parties in the East ------++-++-+see+--ee eee 333 
Macedonius Bishop of Constantinople: ----------. 334 
Tumults in Constantinople — The Emperor Anas- 
TEAS Sliclevalaiexstarciuve statatate olatel ome tetel iets Sistatel ei ete 8388 
Deposition of Macedonius---+---++-++++++++e50 339 
Constantinople in insurrection----++++++++. seees 840 
Revolt of Vitalianus — Humiliation of Anastasius-- 342 
Influence of the Monks wisee) eiatelolelelale)elealaelelsletels/etele 3844 
Pope Gelasitigh lis: ssesorscerezccs γα ce nian nee 347 
Pope JAA Stasis Ll co: -eeverevecele¥elorn =. creutien wer or atarene «+ 849 
Pope Symmachus σα eleksichobel crencienete «> 850 
CHAPTER II. 
CoNVERSION OF THE TEUTONIC RAczs. 
Conversion of the Teutonic τ8068-. " "5 5 5 Ὁ Ὁ Ὁ τ νόσον 353 
Conversion of Germans within the Empire: ------- 355 
Teutonic character----> sot choleheatel skahelalajeheherststonaisrena 356 
Teutonic religion — Woden----...--- coeeeeeees B57 
Human sacrifices— Animal sacrifices — Holy groves 360 
]eAytesileoelocaocanaoc ΓᾺΡ ἀρ δ selavonercdsteietalate aicvetate 862 
Teutons encounter Christianity: -----.-- seen ees 364 
Christ ἃ, Gods of Dattleverersscsteterave a eledeitelcus sicehcn clan 365 
No Teutonic priesthood in their migrations------. 366 
Effect of invasion on Christians-----+++. τ. sees 867 
Teutons in the Roman empire-++-+++-+-++++-+++6 370 
Successive conversion of the tribes---------- ceeee 871 
Arianism of first converts. . "Ὁ 66 εν tee rccsros 2D 
Ulphilas.- SP ela) seh eageteliovel tet eters Ὁ σ Ὁ το cimouc Bie) 
History of conversion unknown, except of Burgun- 
Ghemeic scone sie step ον ἘΣ ile ele ἰοῦ ckselaleheteleiscenet ts) c 876 
Conwversionsof Nranksssctaaetiihiniee oie roo 3.85 
Clovis the only orthodox sovereign: - - - "τ" κότες 882 
Religious WATATS ailciteenchebemete ts sted e 5 aishentedeucweretsrshens ere 384 
Influence of clergy — Clergy Latin tence eens 386 


Effects of conversion on Teutons:-+------- πόνον 889 


Xvi 


A-Do 


499 


514 


518 
518 


525 


CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 


PAGE 

Effects of conversion on moral purity — German 
character in this respect----++++++eeeeees- 390 
Merovingian kings πο aleKeratetateisielsfehetetelievenskeleyielekeiaie 895 
Christianity barbarizes:+++>+++++esseeeeeeeeeeee 397 

Increase of sacerdotal power — Bishops a separate 
OLCOTT, whe seiotahenc viele sishstotelaiatepeteksielolelaisletelere ele 399 

CHAPTER IIT: 
THEODORIC THE OsTROGOTH. 

Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy.+-+-++++++eeeeeceees 403 
GOTO aCe σα στ τα ἀπ tetoreredstcheletotensnciene 1b. 
Union of the races imperfect — Division of lands-- 406 
Theodoric — Peace of Italy--+--+-e+ee+eeeeeeee 408 
Theodoric’s religious rule--+-++++-+++e+eeeeeees 412 
Contested election for the popedom----+++++++++- 416 
Theodoric in Rome — Charges against Symmachus 418 
Tumults in Rome— Synod. «++++-++++eeeeeee ees 419 
Decree of the Palmary Synod-+-+-+++++++eeeees 421 
eAtHAITavOfitheskiaStorciorcccl οἱ τῆν εἴτ δὶ οἱ ἐγ τη πο atehareratens 422 
Pope FTO MIS AG eres ae alo τον ele) atetehetatentimiahelsvelere 423 
The Emperor IAHVASHASTUS ον τ οτος τὴς τ τε lateral sieiahsnstane) 1b. 
Papal embassy to Constantinople: --+++++++++++-- 424 
Death of Anastasius the Emperor---++.-+++++++++ 429 
INC CeSSIONOL cl UStile wlio herria τ τιν Εν πο» ον 1b. 
Closesofitherechismisrs © oa le ltereiereteictateres stelaters τον ore 431 
Prosperity of Theodoric--.++++- se eeee seceeeeee 432 
Rumors of conspiracies fe. efatelereheis να αν miele sive) (wis) alefersieusce 434 
State of Theodoric’s family. +--+ +eee+ee+eeeeeees 436 
Charges against INA coacocuc cod ΠΡ τοι τς 438 

Correspondence with the East — Mission of Pope 
IG απ cuacuon ὁ τοῖς ον να ον 489 
TB OC ERIS a ELIS τ Athicrerchaicterevonever cfaletalsiclcleralcteteierats 443 
ΠΝ fee hed OriGi:  o.« miata /eistetel=(aleicaeisiiarae aienetersieie 447 


DERAUWOTATL ayy ak otaiiats ar eufai'e.\ox ai ake \ehoh tal -nehealevaralterchenebenetels .. 448 


CONTENTS OF VOL. I. XVli 


CHAPTER IV. 


JUSTINIAN. 

A.D. PAGE 
527 Justinian — ΓΠΘΟΟΓΆ - “ "τ 5 777 7 5 Ὑ Στ ΣΤ τ τον 449 
Persian and African ΥΥ 815" - "τ 5 5 77 771 Ὑ 77 λλητσ τυ 452 
Suppression of schools at Athens: - τ 111 ὙτῪ 715 458 
Conquest of Africas++++s+sssersre sere ttre eee 455 

Ostrogothic kingdom — Death of Athalaric — of 
Amalasuntha--+-++eesssseeesseerseeeces 456 
Witiges king: ++ +++ +-.seeretecceeeeee ec ctt ees ib. 
526-535 Popes Felix IV., Boniface II., John II., Agapetus-- 457 
Agapetus in Constantinople: --++++++++++++++** 459 
536 Conquest of Italy by Justinian: ++++++ssseeeseeee 461 
Rome surrendered to Belisarius -+++-+:+--+++++*: ib. 
Vigilius οτος O co a) alle) ote Lekecectial Sieh ousueligi οὐ dieYaltshageiaueKoRuiece tsts 462 
537 Silverius degraded — Vigilius Ῥορθ- - - "τ τττ τσ τον 463 
544 The three Chapters OO OOOO OOO UDO rd Od o OC 465 
Vigilius summoned to Constantinople: - - 1 17 Ὁ 111} 466 
548 Tergiversation of Vigilius----++++++s+ssrsrseee: 467 
554 Banishment — Death-----++-+esseeeree rere seres 470 
556 Pope Pelagius TD saswpote sls ΒΝ, τ’ στο τιν οι shel eceinieie)iersfers shee 471 
Totila --:<::=- Fr oWen ater ches Women ciniaus calee oacVoteceteeeter shone ab. 
The eunuch ΝΑΥΒ65" " “5551 55 τ τ στ στε σον 418 
Popes John III., Benedict I., Pelagius IL.--------- 474 

CHAPTER V. 
CHRISTIAN JURISPRUDENCE. 

Christian jurisprudence: --++++++++sssereesseces 479 
effects of Christianity ΟἹ - - τ Ὁ Ὁ 5 75 Ὁ 7 5 τ στιν ib. 
I. Jurisprudence of Roman empire------+--++++-- ib. 
Il. Barbaric codes--+++ see essere t crete rete eseee 480 
. Il. Christian jurisprudence: --+++-+++++++++++e00> 481 
Supremacy of the Emperor----+++-+-+++++-++++++ 482 
1. Justinian code- +++ Ὁ τ Ὁ Ὁ sree eee eee e cree eeces 483 
Justinian a Christian ΘΙ ΡΘΙΌΣ.- - - τ Ὁ τ τ Ὁ 71 τ τὴ 485 
Preamble — Laws for the clergy —Bishops---- 12. 
Roman law purely Roman------++++++++++*** 489 


VOL. I. 2 


XViii 


CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 


AD. PAGE 
A. Law of PETSONS+ +++ ese cree eee e eee eee eee eee 491 
Freemen and slaves: +++:+++-+sccecesseeecsens ib. 
Law of slavery - «6 06 0106 6 6 iso ses προ «(ele s) dete 493 
Slave-trade ---ccescesecce eee recscvresccees 495 
Christian family ni aliots\ cvcifel esl δος πο σοσσο δος θοθ ib. 
Parental power ee ee 5 οὐυίο σα πα δ 1b. 
Marriage ol alelelelalis\olsieiici/a) eels oil one lethal ele) oie ienstolstel tena 496 
Prohibited degrees ΟΞ σσσ--- 497 
Spiritual relationship: ---+++++++eeee sere eres 498 

ID ior esoro cola Ob Gita GO ooo Molo, noon Clot τ ΝΣ 500 
Concubinage B lelielevele, oeterte! syeretelienel si elis\\aleiel clclelebatetata 503 
Parental Oo occ 504 
Το πσσσ στο οο ὁ ὁ συ σα ἀπ οσσς οσοσσος 505 

B. Law of Property slice te! « lo; κυ πο τ κοτε ὦ ὁ ον 507 
Church property δι 9110) ne! sieve] ia)e/elelsiellelie isis wielsleteleleione 508 

OM τ πα bile pe Gcd too sono dodidnoosaoiStco'to0 511 
Some crimes more severely punished: - - τ το τ τ τσ ib. 
Crime of heresy+++++ crs ese r eres sees eee eee 512 

II. Barbaric codes----+++essseseserseesccenccece 514 
Of Theodoric and Athalaric — King supreme--- 515 
Difference of ranks — Clergy co- HE hice tees 517 
Lombard laws — Salic law — Gothic law------- ib. 
Bishops in popular and judicial assemblies: « --- 524 

A. Law of PETSONS+ see eee eee cere eter sete eee 527 
Freemen and slaves — Emancipation: ------+-- ab. 
Law of marriage Cee cece ne 5. αὖ, 9.) δι cece e rece ve 528 

B. Law of property © Berd fe Nef αἵ δ᾽ and οἱ clic πο ΟἿ Poses 0 sie 535 
Church property seem eee e reeves ee eer 92. 6.66.» δ αἱ πὶ 1b. 

(OL (Ghintial Net - odencosaddcass6douegbunaoce 537 
Asylum ΞΞ- Ordeal τἰτς οἷο κοὐ πΠρ =e) o eteleis ole ataie aiaie 539 
Ill. Church jurisprudence. -++--++-++++++seeeeees 542 
Clergy legislative and executive+--+-+++++-+++: 543 
Rome sole patriarchate of the West--------+--- 544 
Clergy Latin .----++ssseecee cece eee εν τες 546 
Penitential SySteEM +++ - seer eee et eee eee eee ee 550 


Effects on the clergy —on the community 551 


HISTORY 


or 


LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 


INTRODUCTION. 
DESIGN AND PLAN OF THE WORK. 


Tue great event in the history of our religion 
and of mankind, during many centuries after the 
extinction of Paganism, is the rise, the development, 
and the domination of Latin Christianity. patin cnris- 
Though the religion of Christ had its ori- Hanity, 
gin among a Syrian people—though its Divine Au- 
thor spoke an Aramaic dialect — Christianity was 
almost from the first a Greek religion. Its Christianity 

2 7 in its origin 
primal records were all, or nearly all, writ- Greek. 
ten in the Greek language; it was promulgated with 
the greatest rapidity and success among nations either 
of Greek descent, or those which had been Grecised 
by the conquests of Alexander; its most flourish- 
ing churches were in Greek cities. Greek was the 
commercial language in which the Jews, through 
whom it was at first disseminated, and who were 
even now settled in almost every province of the 
Roman world, carried on their intercourse. Prim- 
itive Christianity no doubt continued to speak in 


20 GREEK CHRISTIANITY. INTROD. 


Syriac to vast numbers of disciples in the Syrian 
provinces; it spread eastward to a considerable ex- 
tent, in Babylonia and beyond the Euphrates, into 
regions where Greek ceased to be the common 
tongue. Oriental influences, influences even from 
the remoter East, worked into its doctrine and into 
its system; yet even these flowed in chiefly or in 
great part through Greek channels. The Indian 
Monasticism! had already been domiciliated in Pal- 
estine and among the Egyptian Jews. Oriental and 
Egyptian notions had found their way into the 
Greek philosophy. Among the earlier Christian 
converts were some of these partially orientalized 
Greek philosophers. Many of the first teachers had 
been trained in their schools. In Antioch, in Alex- 
andria, even in Ephesus there was something of an 
Asiatic cast in the Greek civilization. 

Greek Christianity could not but be affected both 
‘Uharacter of in its doctrinal progress and in its pol- 
Greek Chris- , ; ee 
tianity. ity by its Greek origin. Among the 
Greeks had been for centuries agitated all those pri- 
mary questions which lie at the bottom of all re- 
ligions ;—the formation of the worlds—the exist- 
ence and nature of the Deity—the origin and cause 
of evil, though this seems to have been studied 
even with stronger predilection in the trans-Eu- 
phratic East. Hence Greek Christianity was insa- 
tiably inquisitive, speculative. Confident in the in- 
exhaustible copiousness and fine precision of its 

1 Compare, on Buddhist monasticism, the very curious visitation of 
the Buddhist monasteries at the close of the fourth century, the con- 
tinuation of earlier visitations anterior to the Christian era, the Foe 


Xoueki, translated by M. A. Rémusat, Paris, 1836; also the recent more 
popular work by Mr. Hardy, Eastern Monachism, London, 1850. 


INTROD. CHARACTER OF GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 21] 


language, it endured no limitation to its curious 
investigations. As each great question was settled 
or worn out, it was still ready to propose new ones. 
It began with the Divinity of Christ (still earlier 
perhaps with some of the Gnostic Cosmogonical or 
Theophanic theories), so onward to the Trinity: it 
expired, or at least drew near its end as the relig- 
ion of the Roman East, discussing the Divine Light 
on Mount Tabor. 

In their polity the Grecian churches were a fed- 
eration of republics, as were the settlements of the 
Jews. But they were founded on a religious, not 
on a national basis; external to, yet in their boun- 
daries, mostly in their aggregative system, following 
the old commonwealths, which still continued to sub- 
sist under the supremacy of the Roman Prefect or 
Proconsul, and in later times the distribution of the 
Imperial dioceses. They were held together by com- 
mon sympathies, common creeds, common sacred 
books, certain, as yet simple, but common rites, 
common usages of life, and a hierarchy everywhere, 
in theory at least, of the same power and_ influence. 
They admitted the Christians of other places by some 
established sign, or by recommendatory letters. They 
were often bound together by mutual charitable sub- 
ventions. Still each was an absolutely independent 
community. The Roman East, including Greece, 
had no capital. The old kingdoms might respect 
the traditionary greatness of some city, which had 
been the abode of their kings, or which was the 
seat of a central provincial government: other cities, 
from their wealth and population, may have as- 
sumed a superior rank, Antioch in Syria, Alexan- 


22 GREEK CHRISTIANITY. InTROD. 


dria in Egypt, Ephesus in Asia Minor. But though 
churches known or reputed to have been founded 
by Apostles might be looked on with peculiar re- 
spect, there was as yet no subordination, no suprem- 
acy; their federal union was a voluntary associa- 
tion. Whether the internal constitution had become 
more or less rapidly or completely monarchical ; 
whether the Bishop had risen to a greater or less 
height above his co-Presbyters, the whole episcopal 
order, the representatives of each church, were on 
the same level. The Metropolitan and afterwards 
the Patriarchal dignity was of later growth. Jeru- 
salem, which might naturally have aspired to the 
rank of the Christian capital, at least in the East, 
had been destroyed, and remained desolate for many 
years: it assumed only at a later period (at one 
time it was subject to Casarea) even the Patri- 
archal rank. 

But at the extinction of Paganism, Greek, or, as 
it may now be called in opposition to the West, 
Eastern Christianity, had almost ceased to be ag- 
gressive or creative. Except the contested 
conversion of the Bulgarians, later of the 
Russians, and a few wild tribes, it achieved no 
conquests. The Nestorians alone, driven into exile 
by cruel persecutions, formed settlements, and prop- 
agated their own form of Christianity in Persia, 
India, perhaps in still more distant lands. The 
Eastern Church never recovered the ground which 
it had lost before the revived Magianism of the 
Sassanian kings of Persia; and it was compelled to 
retire within still narrowing bounds before trium- 


phant Mohammedanism. The Greek hierarchy had 


Not aggres- 
sive. 


INTROD. CHARACTER OF GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 23 


now lost their unity of action. The great Patriar- 
chates, which by this time had been formed on the 
authority of Councils, were involved in perpetual 
strife, or were contested by rival bishops, till three 
of them, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, sank into 
administrators of a tolerated religion under the Mo- 
hammedan dominion. The Bishop of Constantinople 
was the passive victim, the humble slave, or the 
factious adversary of the Byzantine Emperor: rarely 
exercised a lofty moral control upon his despotism. 
The lower clergy, whatever their more secret benef- 
icent or sanctifying workings on society, had suff- 
cient power, wealth, rank, to tempt ambition, or to 
degrade to intrigue; not enough to command the 
public mind for any great salutary purpose; to re- 
press the inveterate immorality of an effete age; to 
reconcile jarring interests; to mould together hostile 
races: in general they ruled, where they did rule, 
by the superstitious fears, rather than by the rever- 
ence and attachment of a grateful people. They 
sank downward into the common ignorance, and 
yielded to that worst barbarism—a worn out civili- 
zation. Monasticism withdrew a great num- greek Monas- 
ber of those who might have been ener- τα: 

getic and useful citizens into barren seclusion and 
religious indolence ; but except where the monks 
formed themselves, as they frequently did, into fierce 
political or polemic factions, they had little effect on 
the condition of society. They stood aloof from the 
world, the anchorites in their desert wildernesses, 
the monks, in their jealously-barred convents; and 
secure, as they supposed, of their own salvation, 
left the rest of mankind to inevitable perdition. 


94 GREEK CHRISTIANITY. ΙΝΤΕΟΡ. 


Greek theology still maintained its speculative ten- 
greek Theol. Ceney; it went on defining with still more 
ay exquisite subtlety the Godhead and the na- 
ture of Christ. The interminable controversy . still 
lengthened out, and cast forth sect after sect from 
the enfeebled community. The great Greek writers, 
Athanasius, Basil, the Gregories, had passed away 
and left only unworthy successors; the splendid pub- 
lic eloquence had expired on the lips of Chrysostom. 
There was no writer who laid strong hold on the 
imagination or reason of men, except the author of 
that extraordinary book, ascribed to Dionysius the 
Areopagite, of which perhaps the remote influence 
was greater in the West than in the Byzantine 
empire. John of Damascus, the powerful adversary 
of Iconoclasm, is a splendid exception, not merely 
on account of the polemic vigor shown in that con- 
troversy, but as a theologian doubtless the ablest 
of his late age. The Greek language gradually, but 
slowly, degenerated; at length, but not entirely till 
after the fall of Constantinople, it broke up into 
barbarous dialects; but it gave birth by fusion with 
foreign tongues to no new language productive of 
noble poetry, of oratory, or philosophy. A rude 
and premature reformation, that of Iconoclasm, at- 
tempted to overthrow the established traditionary 
faith, but offered nothing to supply its place which 
could either enlighten the mind or enthrall the re- 
ligious affections: it destroyed the images, but it 
did not reveal the Original Deity, or the Christ in 
his pure and essential spirituality. Greek Christian- 
ity remained however, and still remains, a separate 
and peculiar form of faith; it repudiated all the at- 


LNTROD. LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 95 


tempts of the feebler sovereigns of the East to bar- 
ter its independence for succor against the formida- 
ble Turks: it is still the religion of revived Greece, 
and of the vast Russian empire. 

Latin Christianity, on the other hand, seemed en- 
dowed with an inexhaustible principle of pai, chris 
expanding life. No sooner had the North- “*™y- 
ern tribes entered within its magic circle, than they 
submitted to its yoke: and, not content with thus 
conquering its conquerors, it was constantly pushing 
forward its own frontier, and advancing into the 
strongholds of Northern Paganism. Gradually it be- 
came a monarchy, with all the power of a concen- 
trated dominion. The clergy assumed an absolute 
despotism over. the mind of man: not satisfied with 
ruling princes and kings, themselves became princes 
and kings. Their organization was coincident with 
the bounds of Christendom ; they were a second 
universal magistracy, exercising always equal, assert- 
ing, and for a long period possessing, superior power 
to the civil government. They had their own juris- | 
prudence—the canon law,—codrdinate with and of 
equal authority with the Roman or the various na- 
tional codes, only with penalties infinitely more ter- 
rific, almost arbitrarily administered, and admitting 
no exception, not even that of the greatest tempo- 
ral sovereign. Western Monasticism, 1m its atin Monas- 
general character, was not the barren, idly πον. 
laborious or dreamy quietude of the East. It was 
industrious and productive: it settled colonies, pre- 
served arts and letters, built splendid edifices, fer- 
tilized deserts. If it rent from the world the most 
powerful minds, having trained them by its stern 


26 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Inrrop. 


discipline, it sent them back to rule the world. 
It continually, as it were, renewed its youth, and 
kept up a constant infusion of vigorous life, now 
quickening into enthusiasm, now darkening into fa- 
naticism ; and by its perpetual rivalry, stimulating 
the zeal, or supplying the deficiencies of the secular 
clergy. In successive ages it adapted itself to the 
state of the human mind. At first a missionary to 
barbarous nations, it built abbeys, hewed down for- 
ests, cultivated swamps, enclosed domains, retrieved 
or won for civilization tracts which had fallen to 
waste or had never known culture. With St. Dom- 
inic it turned its missionary zeal upon Christianity 
itself, and spread as a preaching order throughout 
Christendom; with St. Francis it became even more 
popular, and lowered itself to the very humblest of 
mankind. In Jesuitism it made a last effort to 
govern mankind by an incorporated caste. But 
Jesuitism found it necessary to reject many of the 
peculiarities of Monasticism: it made itself secular 
to overcome the world. But the compromise could 
not endure. Over the Indians of South America 
alone, but for the force of circumstances, it might 
have been lasting. In Eastern India it became a 
kind of Christian Paganism; in Europe a moral 
and religious Rationalism, fatal both to morals and 
to religion. 

Throughout this period, then, of at least ten cen- 
Iatin Chris. turies, Latin Christianity was the religion 
pipes of the Western nations of Europe: Latin 
the religious language; the Latin translation of the 
Scriptures the religious code of mankind. Latin 
theology was alone inexhaustibly prolific, and held 


ΓΝΤΈΟΡ. CONTROVERSIES. oT 


wide and unshaken authority. On most speculative 
tenets this theology had left to Greek controversial- 
ists to argue out the endless transcendental ques- 
tions of religion, and contented herself with reso- 
lutely embracing the results, which she fixed in her 
inflexible theory of doctrine. The only controversy 
which violently disturbed the Western Church was 
the practical one, on which the East looked almost 
with indifference, the origin and motive principle of 
human action—grace and free will. This, from 
Augustine to Luther and Jansenius, was the imter- 
minable, still reviving problem. Latin Christian lit- 
erature, like Greek, might have seemed already to 
have passed its meridian αἰτοῦ Tertullian, Cyprian, 
Ambrose, and, high above all, Augustine. The age 
of true Latin poetry, no doubt, had long been over ; 
the imaginative in Christianity could only find its 
expression to some extent in the legend and in the 
ritual; but, except in a very few hymns, it was not 
till out of the wedlock of Latin with the Northern 
tongues, not till after new languages had been born 
in the freshness of youth, that there were great 
Christian poets: poets not merely writing on relig- 
ious subjects, but instinct with the religious life of 
Christianity, — Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, Shakspeare, 
Milton, Calderon, Schiller. But not merely did 
Latin theology expand into another vast and teem- 
ing period, that of the Schoolmen, culminating in 
Aquinas; but Latin being the common language, 
the clergy the only learned body throughout. Europe, 
it was that of law in both its branches; of science, 
of philosophy, even of history; of letters; in short, 
of civilization. Latin Christianity, when her time 


28 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. INTROD. 


was come, had her great era of art, not only as 
the preserver of the traditions of Greek and Roman 
skill in architecture, and some of the technical oper- 
ations in sculpture and painting, but original and 
creative. It was art comprehending architecture, 
painting, sculpture, and music, Christian in its full- 
est sense, as devoted entirely to Christian uses, ex- 
pressive of Christian sentiments, arising out of and 
kindling in congenial spirits Christian thought and 
feeling. 

The characteristic of Latin Christianity was that 
Its character. of the old Latin world—a firm and even 
obstinate adherence to legal form, whether of tra- 
ditionary usage or written statute; the strong asser- 
tion of, and the severe subordination to, authority. 
Its wildest and most eccentric fanaticism, for the 
most part, and for many centuries, respected exter- 
nal unity. It was the Roman empire, again ex- 
tended over Europe by an universal code and a 
provincial government ; by a hierarchy of religious 
preetors or proconsuls, and a host of inferior officers, 
each in strict subordination to those immediately 
above them, and gradually descending to the very 
lowest ranks of society: the whole with a certain 
degree of freedom of action, but a restrained and 
limited freedom, and with an appeal to the spiritual 
Cesar in the last resort. 

Latin Christianity maintained its unshaken domin- 
ion until, what I venture to call, Teutonic Chris- 
tianity,!. aided by the invention of paper and of 


1 Throughout the world, wherever the Teutonic is the groundwork of 
the language, the Reformation either is, or, as in Southern Germany, 
has been dominant; wherever Latin, Latin Christianity has retained its 
ascendency. 


(NTROD. TEUTONIC CHRISTIANITY. 29 


printing, asserted its independence, threw off peutonic 

the great mass of traditionary religion, and Ch™s#™%- 
out of the Bible summoned forth a more simple faith, 
which seized at once on the reason, on the conscience, 
and on the passions of men. ‘This faith, with a less 
perfectly organized outward system, has exercised a 
more profound moral control, through the sense of 
strictly personal responsibility. Christianity! became 
a vast influence working irregularly on individual 
minds, rather than a great social system, coerced by 
a central supremacy, by an all-embracing spiritual con- 
trol, and held together by rigid usage, or by outward 
signs of common citizenship. Its multiplicity and 
variety, rather than its unity, was the manifestation 
of its life; or rather its unity lay deeper in its being, 
and consisted more in intellectual sympathies, in affin- 
ities of thought and feeling, of principles and motives, 
in a more remote or rather untraceable kindred through 
the common Father and common Saviour. Ceremo- 
nial uniformity seemed to retire into subordinate im- 
portance and estimation. Books gradually became, 
as far as the instruction of the human race, a codrdi- 


1 Jt is obvious that I use Christianity, and indeed Teutonic Christianity, 
in its most comprehensive significance, from national episcopal churches, 
like that of England, which aspires to maintain the doctrines and organi- 
zation of the apostolic, or immediately post-apostolic ages, onward to that 
dubious and undefinable verge where Christianity melts into a high moral 
theism, a faith which would expand to purer spirituality with less distinct 
dogmatic system; or that which would hardly call itself more than a 
Christian philosophy, a religious Rationalism. I presume not, neither is it 
the office of the historian, to limit the blessings of our religion either in 
this world or the world to come; ‘‘ there is One who will know his own.”’ 
As an historian I can disfranchise none who claim, even on the slightest 
grounds, the privileges and hopes of Christianity: repudiate none who do 
not place themselves without the pale of believers and worshippers of 
Christ, or of God through Christ. 


90 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. INTROD. 


nate priesthood. No longer rare, costly, inaccessible, 
or unintelligible, they descended to classes which they 
had never before approached. Eloquence or argument, 
instead of expiring on the ears of an entranced but 
limited auditory, addressed mankind at large, flew 
through kingdoms, crossed seas, perpetuated and pro- 
mulgated themselves to an incalculable extent. In- 
dividual men could not but be working out in their 
own studies, in their own chambers, in their own 
minds, the great problems of faith. The primal ree- 
ords of Christianity, in a narrow compass, passed into 
all the vernacular languages of the world, where they 
could not be followed by the vast, scattered, and am- 
biguous volumes of tradition. The clergy became less 
and less a separate body (the awakened conscience of 
men refused to be content. with vicarious religion 
through them) ; they ceased to be the sole arbiters of 
man’s destiny in another life: they sank back into 
society, to be distinguished only as the models and 
promoters of moral and religious virtue, and so of 
order, happiness, peace, and the hope of immortality. 
They derived their influence less from a traditionary 
divine commission or vested authority, than from their 
individual virtue, knowledge, and earnest, if less au- 
thoritative, inculeation of divine truth. Monasticism 
was rejected as alien to the primal religion of the Gos- 
pel; the family life, the life of the Christian family, 
resumed its place as the highest state of Christian 
grace and perfection. 

This progressive development of Christianity seems 
Progressive the inevitable consequence of man’s progress 
or Chektant in knowledge, and in the more general dis- 
Ey semination of that knowledge. Human 


INTROD. TEUTONIC CHRISTIANITY. 81 


thought is almost compelled to assert, and cannot help 
asserting, its original freedom. And as that progress 
is manifestly a law of human nature, proceeding from 
the divine Author of our being, this self-adaptation of 
the one true religion to that progress must have the 
divine sanction, and may be supposed, without pre- 
sumption, to have been contemplated in the counsels 
of Infinite Wisdom. 

The full and more explicit expansion of these views 
on this Avatar of Teutonic Christianity must await 
its proper place at the close of our history. 


BOOK I. 


—— α8»----- 


CHRONOLOGY OF FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 


Bishops of Rome. 


Emperors. 


Remarkable Events, &c. 


1 St. Peter (accord- 
ing to Jerome). 


1 Linus (according to 
Jerome, Irene- 
us, Eusebius). 


Claudius, year 
2. 


wee eeeeeseee 


Nero, Oct. 18. 


Claudius in Britain. 

Death of Herod. 

Agrippa the Younger in favor 
with Claudius. 

St. Paul visits Jerusalem with 
Barnabas. 

Tiberius Alexander, Governor 
in Judea. 

Agrippa the Younger succeeds 
his uncle, Herod. 

Cumanus, Governor of Judea. 

Council of Jerusalem. 1 Epistle 
to Thessalonians. 

The date of the expulsion of the 
Jews (Suet. Claud.) uncer- 
tain, but as Agrippa in 
Rome was in high favor, and 
would protect the Jewish 
interests, it was probably 
after his departure from 
Rome. 

Felix, Governor of Judea. 2 
Epistle to Thessalonians. 


Paul at Ephesus. 1 Epistle to 
Corinthians. ι 

At Corinth. Epistle to Galatians. 

At Corinth. Epistle to Romans. 

Death of Agrippa. 

Paul before Felix. Before Fes- 
tus. In Malta. 

Paulin Rome, writes to the Ephe- 
sians. 

Paul acquitted. Epistles to Phi- 
lippians, Colossians, Phile- 
mon. i; 

Fire of Rome. Persecution of the 
Christians. Florus, Goy- 
ernor of Judea. 

Nero goes to Greece. 

Martyrdom of St. Paul — and of 
St. Peter (?). 


Boox I. CHRONOLOGY 


OF FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 


33 


Bishops of Rome. 


Emperors. 


Remarkable Events, &c. 


2 Clement (accord- 
ing to Tertul- 
lian and Rufi- 
nus). 


μι ὦ οὐ -ἰ σ OP Co 


ee 


1 Cletus, or Ana- 
cletus (?). 


1 Clement (?) (ac- 
cording to later 
writers). 


were ceeescesoce 


eres eesesescecs 


Alexander (?). 


sere eer eeaseeee 


Sixtus (?) 


Galba, Otho, 
Vitellius, 
Vespasian. 


Titus. 


Domitian. 


sees eoeseeees 


Hadrian. 


| 


Death of Nero, in June. 


Capture and destruction of Je- 
rusalem. 


Death of Titus, Sept. 18 


Death of the Consul Flavius 
Clemens, on account of 
Jewish superstition. 


Death of St. John (Irenzus, 
Eusebius). 


Pliny in Bithynia. 
Pliny’s Letter to Trajan. 


Trajan in the East. Sedition of 
the Jews in Egypt and Cy- 
rene. Martyrdom of Igna- 
tius. 


LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book I. 


Bishops of Rome. 


μ- 
DOF COD HS ὦ οὐ - Ot 


Telesphorus. 


ee 


συ 


Anicetus. 


ee τοοοοόοοστοο 


1 Eleutherius (or 
176). 


Emperors. | Remarkable Events, &c. 


ἀπ οοϑθοσς | Hadrian at Athens. Apologies 
of Quadratus and Aristides. 


cc ccccccere . | Hadrian in Egypt. 
Sisisielelesialeteiere Jewish War. 


Hpadschoddco Bar Cochba persecutes the 
Christians. 
οὐ ξ σοι End of the Jewish War. 
Sietalelcletestetetele Foundation or reconstruction of 
Blia on the ruins of Jerusa- 
Antoninus Pius. lem. 


cocccecseees | Polycarp in Rome. 
eisteteletateretetctets Marcion in Rome. Justin Mar- 
tyr, Apology I. 


seeeceseees | Parthian War ended. Marcus 
Aurelius in the East. Mar- 
tyrdom of Polycarp (?). 


sossonosoene Terror about Marcomannian 
War. Justin Martyr. 

slslelalelneleteleis . | Apology of Athenagoras. 

evcccceseees | Death of Verus. 

sfelelelelete κεν. | Letter of Dionysius. 

Sadiadabonods Apology of Melito, B. of Corinth, 
Euseb. H. Εἰ. iv., 28. 

gdundoodbe .. | Battle with Quadi — Storm 


thought miraculous. 


aieieleisieistalsioiete Martyrs of Lyons. 


Book I. 


Bishops of Rome. 


Emperors. 


+ 


Victor (?). 


So 


3 
4 
5 
7 
8 
9 


2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
1 Pontianus, July 
22, 
2 
8 
4 
5 
6 


Commodus. 


Pertinax. 
Julianus. 
Niger. 
Severus. 


Macrinus. 
Elagabalus. 


Alexander Seve- 
rus. 


Anteros(Pontianus| Maximinus, 


died Sept. 28). 


The 2 Gordians, 


Anteros died Pupienus Bal- 


June 18, 236. 


binus. 


CHRONOLOGY OF FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 85 


Remarkable Events, &c. 


Montanus, Priscilla and Maxi- 
milla. 

Dispute about Easter. — Euseb. 
H. E. v 


Persecution of Severus in Egypt 
Origen teaches in Egypt. 


Tertullian, Lib. I. Adv. Marcion. 
He is now a Montanist. 


Origen at Rome. Tertullian ad 
Scapulam (?). 


Hippolytus bishop of Porto. 


Pontianus banished to Sardinia. 
His Martyrdom(?), Martyrdom 
of Hippolytus (7). 


36 


AD. Bishops of Rome. 


LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 


1 Fabianus. 


eeeece eeecceccce 


See vacant. 

1 Cornelius, June 4, 
d. Sept. 14. 

1 Lucius. 

1 Stephen. 


Ἀν τος 
4 


Sixtus 11., Martyr, 

d. Aug. 2, 258. 
Vacancy. 

1 Ticnyatu, July 


ΟΣ 


μ- 


Ὁ οὐ ͵Ἱα᾽ιυ ΟΡ. CON HONDO στη» CON μα σὺ OUP CON HO ὦ οὐ AI Or CODD 


A PSone Roi 


Eutychianus. 


ΣΎ ΣΣ 


Caius. 


eeeeeseeseseceee 


Emperors. 


| 


Gordianus Ju- 
nior. 


ZEmilianus Va- 
lerianus. 


Claudius. 
Aurelian. 


Florianus. 


Carus, Carinus. 
Numerianus. 
Diocletian. 


Maximian. 


Philippus Arabs. 


Tacitus, Probus. 


Book I 


Remarkable Events, &c. 


Cyprian, bishop of Carthage. 
Martyrdom of Fabianus, Jan. 20. 


St. Cyprian. 


Death of Origen. 

Controversy concerning the Lap- 
si, Novatian Antipope. 

Controversy about baptism of 
Heretics. III. Council of 
Carthage. 

Exile of Cyprian. 


Martyrdom of Sixtus. Martyr- 
dom of Cyprian, Sept. 14. 


\ 
Paul of Samosata deposed. 


Manes from A.D. 241 to a.» 272 


Lactantius. 


Βοοκ 1. 


CHRONOLOGY OF FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 


37 


ee ΦῦῦΦΦ- ν “ς΄. «στ πτπὰπὰπππἰπὀ πὰπἀπἧἑππὩΦππΠάααστπτππσπσσσασσσασι 


A.D. 


Bishops of Rome. 


Emperors. 


Marcellus, May 19. 


Eusebius, 6 months. 
1 Vacancy. 


1 Marcus, Jan 18. 
1 Julius I., Feb. 6. 


Two Ceesars, 
Constantius, 
Galerius. 


ΠΣ 


Died Oct. 24. 
See vacant. 


5 


Constantius, 
Galerius. 


Constantine, 
Maxentius, 
Licinius, 
Maximian. 

Six Emperors. 


Melchi- 
ades, July 2. 


ee 


πο. 


Constantine, 
Constans, 
Constantius. 


ΠΣ 


“οοοοοοοοοοοοοο | πλλ λό όόσσοσο 


weer eersesesoes re . 


Severus Maximin. 


Remarkable Events, &c. 


Arnobius. 


Persecution. 


Abdication of Diocletian 
Maximian. 


and 


Death of Severus. 


Death of Maximian. 
Death of Galerius. 


Victory of Constantine over 
Maxentius. 
Edict of Milan, Oct. 28. 


Defeat and death of Licinius. 
Constantine sole Emperor. 
Council of Nicea, June 19. 


Exile of Athanasius. 
Baptism of Constantine. 


* 
᾿ς 
Athanasius returns from exile. 


Constantine defeated and killed 
by Constans. Death of Eu- 
sebius of Ceesarea. 

Athanasius in Rome. Law 
against Pagan sacrifices. 


LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 


ry 


15 died Sept. 29. 
1 Damasus. 


14 .. 6.65. .60 


“τ... 


18 ΤαπιΑΒΌΒ died Dec. 


1 Siricius. 


Emperors. 


Boox I. 


Remarkable Events, &c. 


wees eeercene 
eee e ree eeeas 


Magnentius. 


Constantius 
alone. 


ee er - 


weer aoe eses 


Jovian. 


| Valentinian, 


Valens. 


Gratian. 


Theodosius, 
Emp. of the 
East. 


Athanasius at Milan, in Gaul. 


Council of Sardica. 

Council of Philippopolis. 

Athanasius in Alexandria. 

Constans killed in Spain by 
Magnentius. 


Battle of Mursa. Death of 
Magnentius. 

Birth of Augustine. 

Council of Arles. Council 
of Milan. Banishment of 
Liberius. 

Julian’s Campaign in Gaul. 
Athanasius exiled from Al- 
exandria. 

Constantius at Rome. 

Recall of Liberius. 

Council of Rimini. Council of 


Seleucia. 
Death of Constantius. 
Athanasius returns to Alexan- 
dria — again expelled. 
Attempt to rebuild the Temple. 
Death of Julian, June 26. 


Tumults at Rome on the con- 
tested election of Damasus 
and Ursicinus. 


Death of Athanasius, May 2. 
Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. 


Death of Valens. 
Theodosius expels the Arians. 
Synod against Priscillian. 


Council of Constantinople. Ad- 
dress of Symmachus on Stat- 
ute of Theodosius de Heret- 
icis. 

Jerome retires to Bethlehem. 


Chrysostom ad Antiochenos. 


Temple of Serapis destroyed. 


CHRONOLOGY OF FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 39 


Boox I. 

πα ππππππππ πππππ 
A.D. Bishops of Rome. Emperors. Remarkable Eyents, &c. 
393 ΘΕ Bcooaboncaaosae, || miadebocoasne Jerome retires to Bethlehem. 
394 10 
895 1 «οοοοοοοσοσσονο Honorius, Ar- 
896 | 12 cadius. 
897 13 f 
898 14 died Nov. 26. slaidalaisielele +». | Death of Ambrose. 
39 Anastasius. $= = | «ccccceccace Chrysostom Bishop of Constan- 
400 tinople. 


a 


pi Pri a 
svi ea nes 


Crap. I. HISTORIC PERIODS. 41 


CHAPTER I N.YORK. 2 
BEGINNING OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY. 


Latin Christianity, from its commencement, in its 
character, and in all the circumstances of its ponan Pontif- 
development, had an irresistible tendency to ‘ate,.Re cen 
monarchy. Its capital had for ages been the Ch™stanty- 
capital of the world, and it still remained that of Western 
Europe. This monarchy reached its height under Hilde- 
brand and Innocent III.; the history of the Roman 
Pontificate thus becomes the centre of Latin Christian 
History. The controversies of the East, in which Occi- 
dental or Roman Christianity mingled with a lofty dic- 
tation, sometimes so unimpassioned, that it might seem 
as though the establishment of its own supremacy was 
its ultimate aim — the conversion of the different races 
of Barbarians, who constituted the world of Latin 
Christendom — Monasticism, with the forms which it 
assumed in its successive Orders—the rise and con- 
quests of Mohammedanism, with which Latin religion 
came at length into direct conflict, at first in Spain and 
Gaul, in Sicily and Italy ; afterwards when the Popes 
placed themselves at the head of the Crusades, and 
Islam and Latin Christianity might seem to contest the 
dominion of the human race —the restoration of the 


42 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


Western empire beyond the Alps — the feudal system 
of which the Pope aspired to be as it were the spiritual 
Suzerain—the long and obstinate conflicts with the 
temporal power —the origin and tenets of the sects 
which attempted to withdraw from the unity of the 
church, and to retire into independent communities — 
the first struggles of the human mind for freedom within 
Latin Christendom — the gradual growth of Christian 
literature, Christian art, and Christian philosophy — all 
these momentous subjects range themselves as episodes 
in the chronicle of the Roman bishops. Hence our 
history obtains that unity which impresses itself upon 
the attention, and presents the vicissitudes of centuries 
as a vast, continuous, harmonious whole; while at the 
same time it breaks up and separates itself into distinct 
periods, each with its marked events, peculiar character, 
and commanding men. And so the plan of our work 
may, at least, attempt to fulfil the two great functions 
of history, to arrest the mind and carry it on with 
unflagging interest, to infix its whole course of events 
on the imagination and the memory, as well by its 
broad and definite landmarks, as by the life and reality 
of its details in each separate period. The writer is 
unfeignedly conscious how far his own powers fall below 
the dignity of his subject, below the accomplishment 
of his own conceptions. 


I. — The first of these periods in the history of Latin 
a. v. 366-401. Christianity closes with Pope Damasus and 
his two successors.!_ Its age of total obscurity is passed, 
its indistinct twilight is brightening into open day. The 


1 There is another advantage in this division; the first authentic decretal 
is that of Pope Siricius, the successor of Damasus. 


CHAP. I. HISTORIC PERIODS. 43 


Christian bishop is become so important a personage in 
Rome, as to be the subject of profane history. His 
election is a cause of civil strife. Christianity more 
than equally divides the Patriciate, still more the peo- 
ple; it has already ascended the Imperial throne. 
Noble matrons and virgins are becoming the vestals of 
Christian Monasticism. The bitterness of the Heathen 
party betrays a galling sense of inferiority. Paganism 
is writhing, struggling, languishing in its death pangs, 
Christianity growing haughty and wanton in its tri- 
umph. 


II.— The second ends with Pope Leo the Great. 
Paganism has made its last vain effort, not a. p. 461. 
now for equality, for toleration. It has been buried 
under the ruins of the conquered capital. Alaric 
tramples out its last embers. Rome emerges from its 
destruction by the Goths a Christian city. The East 
has wrought out, after the strife of two centuries, the 
dogmatic system of the church, which Rome receives 
with haughty condescension, as if she had imposed it 
on the world. ‘The great Western controversy, Pela- 
gianism, has been agitated and has passed away. Pre- 
tensions to the successorship of St. Peter are a. ν. 402-417 
already heard from Innocent I. Claims are made at 
least to the authority of a Western Patriarch. In Leo 
the Great, half a century later, the pope is a. νυ. 440-461. 
not merely the greatest personage in Rome, but even 
πὶ Italy; he takes the lead as a pacific protector 
against the Barbarians. Leo the Great is likewise the 
first distinguished writer among the popes. 


III.— To the death of Gregory I. (the Great). 


44 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


Α. Ὁ. 604 Christianity is not only the religion of the 
Roman or Italian, but in part of the barbarian world. 
Now takes place the league of Christianity with Bar- 
barism. The old Roman letters and arts die away into 
almost total extinction. So fallen is Roman literature, 
that Boethius is a great philosopher, Cassiodorus a 
great historian, Prudentius, Fortunatus, Juvencus great 
poets. The East has made its last effort to unite the 
Christian world under one dominion. Justinian has 
aspired to legislate for Christendom. Monastic Chris- 
tianity, having received a strong impulse from St. Ben- 
edict, is in the ascendant. Gregory I. as a Pope, and 
as a writer, offers himself as a model of its excellencies 
and defects. 


IV.— To the coronation of Charlemagne as Em- 
Δ. Ὁ. 800. peror of the West. Mohammed and Mo- 
hammedanism arise. The East and Egypt are severed 
from Greek, Africa and Spain from Latin Christianity. 
Anglo-Saxon Britain, Western and Southern Ger- 
many are Christian. Iconoclasm in the East finally 
separates Greek and Latin Christianity. The Pope 
has become the great power in Italy. The Gothic 
kingdom, the Greek dominion of Justinian have passed 
away. The Pope seeks an alliance against the Lom- 
bards with the Transalpine kings. Charlemagne is 
Patrician of Rome and Emperor of the West. 


V.— The Empire of Charlemagne. The mingled 
Temporal and Ecclesiastical supremacy of Charle- 
magne breaks up at his death. Under his successors 
the spiritual supremacy, in part the temporal, falls to 
the clergy. Growth of the Transalpine hierarchy. 


Cuap. I. HISTORIC PERIODS. 45 


Pope Nicholas the First accepts the false decretals. 
Invasion of the Northmen. The dark ages s.. 996. 
of the Papacy lower and terminate in the degradation 
of the Popes into slaves of the lawless Barons of the 
Romagna. 


VI. — The line of German Pontiffs. The Transal- 
pine powers interpose, rescue the Papacy 4. »-996-1061. 
from its threatened dissolution, from the hatred and 
contempt of mankind. For great part of a century 
foreign ecclesiastics are seated on the Papal throne. 


VII. — The restoration of the Italian Papacy under 
Gregory VII. (Hildebrand). The Pontifi- , ,. τοοῖ- 
cates of his immediate predecessors and suc- 1 
cessors. Now commences the complete organization of 
the sacerdotal caste as independent of, and claiming 
superiority to, all temporal powers. The strife of cen- 
turies ends in the enforced celibacy of the clergy. Ber- 
enger disputes Transubstantiation. Urban II. places 
himself at the head of Christendom on the 4- »- 1096. 
occasion of the first Crusade. 


VIII.—Continuation of contest about Investitures. 
Intellectual movement. Erigena. Gotschalk. An- 
selm. Abelard. Arnold of Brescia. Strong revival 
of Monasticism. Stephen Harding. St. Ber- ne 12th cen- 
nard. Strife in England for immunities of ae 
the clergy. Thomas ἃ Becket. Rise of the Emperors 
of the line of Hohenstaufen. Frederick Barbarossa. 


IX. — Meridian of the Papal power under Innocent 
III. Innocent aspires to rule all the king- From 1198. 


40 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


doms of the West. Latin conquest of Constantinople. 
Wars of the Albigenses. St. Dominic. St. Francis. 


X.— The successors of Innocent III. wage an inter- 
necine conflict with the Emperors. Fruitless and pre- 
mature attempt at emancipation under Frederick II. 
Ξ The Decretals, the Palladium of the Papal 

regory IX. 

1228-1288. power, are collected, completed, promulgated 
as the law of Christendom by Gregory IX. Con- 
tinued conflict of the Papal and Sacerdotal against the 
ἀπο τῇ Τὰ Imperial and Secular power. Innocent IV. 
dies 1264. Fall of the House of Hohenstaufen. 


XI.— The Empire is crushed, and withdraws into 
its Teutonic sphere. The French descend into Italy. 
In the King of France arises a new adversary to the 
Pope. Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII. 
close the open strife of the temporal and 
spiritual power. 


Boniface dies 
1 


XII. — The Popes are become the slaves of France 
at Avignon. What is called the Babylonian cap- 
av. 1806 to tivity of seventy years. Clement V. abol- 
"670. ishes the Templars. The Empire resumes 
its claims on Italy. Henry of Luxemburg. Louis 


of Bavaria. John XXII. and the Fraticelli. Rienzi. 


XIII. — Restoration to Rome. The great Schism. 
Councils of Pisa, of Constance, of Basil, of Florence, — 
the Councils advance a claim to supremacy over the 
Popes. Last attempt to reconcile Greek and Latin 
‘Christianity. Popes begin to be patrons of Letters 
and Arts. 


Cuap. I. FIRST PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY IN ROME, AT 


XIV. — Retrospect of Mediaeval Letters and Arts 
Revival of Greek Letters. 


Conciuston. — Advance of the Reformation. Teu- 
tonic Christianity aspires and begins to divide the 
world with Latin Christianity. 


Like almost all the great works of nature and of 
human power in the material world and in the world 
of man, the Papacy grew up in silence and obscurity. 
The names of the earlier Bishops of Rome are known 
only by barren lists,! by spurious decrees and epistles 
inscribed, centuries later, with their names ; by their 
collision with the teachers of heretical opinions, almost 
all of whom found their way to Rome ; by martyrdoms 
ascribed with the same lavish reverence to those who 
lived under the mildest of the Roman emperors, as 
well as those under the most merciless persecutors.? 
Yet the mythic or imaginative spirit of early Chris- 
tianity has either respected, or was not tempted to 


1 The catalogue published by Bucherius, called also Liberianus, is gen- 
erally the most accredited. M. Bunsen promises a revision of the whole 
question. (Hippolytus, i. 279.) Historically the chronological discrepan- 
cies in these lists are of no great importance. But it is remarkable that 
almost all the earlier names are Greek; Clemens, Pius, Victor, Caius, are 
among the very few genuine Roman. 

2In a list of Popes, published by Fabricius (Bibliotheca Greca, xi. p. 
794), from St. Peter to Sylvester, two unhappy pontiffs alone (who are ac- 
knowledged to be Greeks) are excluded from the honors of martyrdom, 
Dionysius and Eusebius. It might seem that this list was composed after 
Greek and Latin Christianity had become hostile. As an illustration of the 
worthlessness of these traditions, Telesphorus is reckoned as a martyr on 
the authority of Irenzus (1. 11. c. 3; compare note of Feuardentius). But 
Telesphorus was bishop of Rome during the reign of Hadrian; his martyr- 
dom is ascribed to the first year of Antoninus Pius. Their character, as 
well as the general voice of Christian history (see Hist. of Christianity, 
vol. i. p. 151, 156), absolves these emperors from the charge of persecution. 


48 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book. I. 


indulge its creative fertility by the primitive annals of 
Rome. After the embellishment, if not the invention, 
of St. Peter’s Pontificate, his conflict with Simon 
Magus in the presence of the Emperor, and the cir- 
cumstance of his martyrdom, it was content with 
raising the successive bishops to the rank of martyrs 
without any peculiar richness or fulness of legend.! 
It would be singularly curious and instructive to 
trace, if it were possible, the rise and growth of any 
single Christian community, more especially that of 
Rome, at once in the whole church, and in the lives of 
the bishops; the first initiatory movements in the con- 
quest of the world, and of the mistress of the world, 
by the religion of Christ. How did the Church 
enlarge her sphere in Rome? how, out of the popu- 
lation (from a million to a million and a half),? 
slowly gather in her tens, her hundreds, her thousands 
of converts? By what processes, by what influences, 


1 Two remarkable passages greatly weaken, or rather utterly destroy the 
authority of all the older Roman martyrologies. In the book, De libris 
recipiendis, ascribed to the pontificate of Damasus, of Hormisdas, more 
probably to that of Gelasius, the caution of the Roman Church, in not 
publicly reading the martyrologies is highly praised, their writers being 
unknown and without authority. Singulari cautelé a 5. Rom. Ecclesia 
non leguntur, quia et eorum qui conscripserint nomina penitus ignorantur, 
et ab infidelibus vel idiotis superflua aut minus apta quam rei ordo fuerit 
esse putantur .. . . The authors ‘‘ Deo magis quam hominibus noti sunt.’ 
Apud Mansi, sub Pont. Gelasii, A.D. 492, 496. Gregory I. makes even a 
more ingenuous confession, that excepting one small volume (a calendar, it 
should seem, of the names and days on which they were honored) there 
were no Acts of Martyrs in the archives of the Roman See or in the 
libraries of Rome. Preter illa, que in ejusdem Eusebii libris (doubtless 
the de Martyr. Palest. of the historian), de gestis sanctorum marty- 
rum continentur, nulla in archivis hujus nostra Ecclesie vel in Romans 
urbis bibliothecis esse cognovi, nisi pauca quedam in unius codicis volu- 
mine collecta, et segg. Greg. M. Epist. viii. 29. 

2 Notwithstanding the arguments of M. Dureau de la Malle, Mr. Meri- 
vale, and other learned writers who have also investigated this subject, I 
still think the estimate of Gibbon the most probable. 


Cuar. I. FIRST PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY IN ROME. 49 


by what degrees did the Christians creep onward 
towards dangerous, towards equal, towards ovseuity or 
superior numbers? How did they find ac- the fst prog: 
cess to the public ear, the public mind, the "™y: 
public heart? How were they looked upon by the 
government (after the Neronian persecution), with 
what gradations, or alternations of contempt, of indif- 
ference, of suspicion, of animosity? When were they 
entirely separated and distinguished in general opinion 
from the Jewish communities? When did they alto- 
gether cease to Judaize? From what order, from what 
class, from what race did they chiefly make their pros- 
elytes? Where and by what channels did they wage 
their strife with the religion, where with the philoso- 
phy of the times? ‘To what extent were they per- 
mitted or disposed to hold public discussion? or did 
the work of conversion spread in secret from man to 
man? When did their worship emerge from the 
obscurity of a private dwelling; or have its edifices, 
like the Jewish synagogues, recognized as sacred 
fanes? Were they, to what extent, and how long, a 
people dwelling apart within their own usages, and 
retiring from social communion with their kindred, 
and with the rest of mankind ? 

Rome must be imagined in the vastness and multi- 
formity of its social condition, the mingling and con- 
fusion of races, languages, conditions, in order to 
conceive the slow, imperceptible, yet continuous ag- 
gression of Christianity. Amid the affairs of the 
universal empire, the perpetual revolutions, which were 
constantly calling up new dynasties or new masters 
over the world, the pomp and state of the Imperial 


palace, the commerce, the business flowing in from all 
VOL. I. 4 


50 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book I. 


parts of the world, the bustle of the Basilicas or courts 
of law, the ordinary religious ceremonies, or the more 
splendid rites on signal occasions, which still went on, 
if with diminishing concourse of worshippers, with 
their old sumptuousness, magnificence, and frequency, 
the public games, the theatres, the gladiatorial shows, 
the Lucullan or Apician banquets, — Christianity was 
gradually withdrawing from the heterogeneous mass 
some of all orders, even slaves, out of the vices, the 
ignorance, the misery of that corrupted social system. 
It was ever instilling feelings of humanity yet un- 
known or coldly commended by an impotent. philoso- 
phy, among men and women, whose infant ears had 
been habituated to the shrieks of dying gladiators ; it 
was giving dignity to minds prostrated by years, almost 
centuries, of degrading despotism; it was nurturing 
purity and modesty of manners in an unspeakable state 
of depravation ; it was enshrining the marriage bed in 
a sanctity long almost entirely lost, and rekindling to a 
steady warmth the domestic affections; it was sub- 
stituting a simple, calm, and rational faith and worship 
for the worn-out superstitions of heathenism; gently 
establishing in the soul of man the sense of immor- 
tality, till it became a natural and inextinguishable 
part of his moral being. ᾿ 

The dimness and obscurity which veiled the growing 
ΠΕ πειθοῖ church, no doubt threw its modest conceal- 
Rome. ment over the person of the Bishop. He 
was but one man, with no recognized function, in the 
vast and tumultuous population. He had his un- 
marked dwelling, perhaps in the distant Transteverine 
region, or in the then lowly and unfrequented Vatican. 
By the vulgar, he was beheld as a Jew, or as belonging 


Cuap. I. OBSCURITY OF THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 51 


to one of those countless Eastern religions, which, from 
the commencement of the Empire, had been flowing, 
each with its strange rites and mysteries, into Rome. 
The Emperor, the Imperial family, the court favorites, 
the military commanders, the Consulars, the Senators, 
the Patricians by birth, wealth, or favor, the Pontiffs, the 
great lawyers, even those who ministered to the public 
pleasures, the distinguished mimes or gladiators, when 
they appeared in the streets, commanded more public 
attention than the Christian Bishop, except when 
sought out for persecution by some politic or fanatic 
Emperor. Slowly, and at long intervals, did the 
Bishop of Rome emerge to dangerous eminence. Yet, 
was there not more real greatness, a more solemn 
testimony to his faith in Christ, in this calm and 
steadfast patience which awaited the tardy accomplish- 
ment of the divine promises, than if, as he is some- 
times described by the fond reverence of later Roman 
writers, he had already laid claim to supreme power 
over expanding Christianity, or had been held of suffi- 
cient importance to be constantly exposed to death ? 
The Bishop of Rome could not but be conscious that 
he was chief minister in the capital of the world of 
a religion which was confronting Paganism in all its 
power and majesty. His faith was constantly looking 
forward to the time, when (if not anticipated by the 
more appalling triumph at the coming of Christ in His 
glory) that vast fabric of idolatry, in its strength and 
wealth, hallowed by the veneration of ages, with all 
its temples, pomps, theatres, priesthood, its crimes and 
its superstitions, and besides this, all the wisdom of the 
philosophic aristocracy, would crumble away ; and the 
successor of the Galilean fisherman or the persecuted 


Sy LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I 


Jew be recognized as the religious sovereign of the 
Christianized city. The peaceful head of a small 
community (small comparatively with the believers in 
the old religions or the believers in none, ) even though, 
like the Apostle, he may have had some converts in high 
places, ‘in Cxesar’s household,” yet who had no doubt 
in the future universality of Christianity, and who was 
content to pursue his noiseless course of beneficence 
and conversion, is a nobler example of true Christian- 
ity, than he who, in the excitement of opposition to 
power, and in the absorbing but brief agony of 
martyrdom, laid down his life for the Cross. 

Christianity, indeed, might seem, even from the 
first, to have disdained obscurity —to have 
sprung up or to have been forced into terri- 
ble notoriety in the Neronian persecution and the sub- 
sequent martyrdom of one at least, according to the 
vulgar tradition, of its two great Apostles. What 
caprice of cruelty directed the attention of Nero to 
the Christians, and made him suppose them victims 
important enough to glut the popular indignation at 
the burning of Rome, it is impossible to determine: 
(the author has ventured on a bold conjecture, and 
Of Domitian. adheres to his own paradox).! The cause 
and extent of the Domitian persecution is equally ob- 
scure. The son of Vespasian was not likely to be 
merciful to any connected with the fanatic Jews. Its 
known victims were of the imperial family, against 
whom some crime was necessary, and an accusation of 
Christianity served the end.? 

At the commencement of the second century, under 


Persecution 
of Nero. 


1 Hist. of Christianity, ii. p. 36. 
2 Tbid., ii. p. 59. 


Cuap. I. ROMAN CHURCH UNDER TRAJAN. 99 


Trajan, persecution against the Christians is Roman 

c z Church under 
raging in the East. That, however (1 feel trajan. 
increased confidence in the opinion), was a local, or 
rather Asiatic persecution, arising out of the vigilant 
and not groundless apprehension of the sullen and 
brooding preparation for insurrection among the whole 
Jewish race (with whom Roman terror and hatred 
still confounded the Christians), which broke out in 
the bloody massacres of Cyrene and Cyprus, and in 
the final rebellion, during the reign of Hadrian, under 
Barchochebas. But while Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, 
is carried to Rome to suffer martyrdom, the Roman 
community is in peace, and not without influence. 
Ignatius entreats his Roman brethren not to interfere 
with injurious kindness between himself and his glo- 
rious death.} 

The wealth of the Roman community, and their 
lavish Christian use of their wealth, by contributing 
to the wants of foreign churches, at all periods, espec- 
ially in times of danger and disaster, (an ancient usage 
which lasted till the time of Eusebius, ) testifies at once to 
their flourishing condition, to their constant communica- 
tion with more distant parts of the empire,” and thus in- 


1 Φοβοῦμαι yap τὴν ὑμῶν ἀγάπην, μὴ αὐτῇ με ἀδικήσῃ, ὑμῖν yap εὐχερές 
ἐστιν ὃ ϑέλετε ποιῆσαι. ---. 41. ᾿Εγὼ γράφω πάσαις ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις καὶ 
ἐντέλλομαι πᾶσιν ὅτι ἐγὼ ἑκὼν ὑπὲρ Θεοῦ ἀποϑνήσκω, ἑάνπερ ὑμεῖς μὴ 
κωλύσητέ (με). Παρακαλῶ ὑμεῖς μὴ (ἐν) εὐνοίᾳ ἀκαίρῳ γένησϑέ μοι 
+» — Corpus Ignatianum a Cureton, p. 45. I quote Mr. Cureton’s Syriac 
Ignatius, not feeling that the larger copies have equal historical authority. 

2 The first notice of this is in the latter half of the second century, during 
the bishopric of Soter, either 173-177, or 168-176, as appears from the let- 
ter of Dionysius of Corinth, ἐξ ἀρχῆς yap ὑμῖν ἔϑος ἐστὶ τοῦτο. He calls it 
also πατριπαράδοτον &oc. —Euseb. H. E. iv. 23. It continued during the 
Decian persecution; Syria and Arabia are described as rejoicing in the 
bounty of Rome. H. E. vii. 5. Eusebius himself speaks of it as lasting 
‘ohis time. τὸ μεχρὶ τοῦ καϑ᾽ ἡμᾶς διωγμοῦ φυλαχϑὲν Ῥωμαίων ἔϑος. 


δ4 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


cidentally, perhaps, to the class, the middle or mercantile 
class, which formed the greater part of the believers. 
But the history of Latin Christianity has not begun. 
For some considerable (it cannot but be an undefinable) 
Church of part of the first three centuries, the Church 
Rome Greek. of Rome, and most, if not all the churches of 
the West, were, if we may so speak, Greek religious 
colonies. Their language was Greek, their organiza- 
tion Greek, their writers Greek, their Scriptures 
Greek ; and many vestiges and traditions show that 
their ritual, their Liturgy was Greek. Through Greek 
the communication of the churches of Rome and of 
the West was constantly kept up with the East; and 
through Greek every heresiarch, or his disciples, hay- 
ing found his way to Rome, propagated, with more or 
less success, his peculiar doctrines. Greek was the 
commercial language throughout the empire ; by which 
the Jews, before the destruction of their city, already 
so widely dissemmated through the world, and alto- 
gether engaged in commerce, carried on their affairs. 


1 At the commencement of the second century, from the time of the 
great peace, which followed the victories of Trajan, and which, with some 
exceptions, occupied the whole reigns of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus 
Aurelius, till the Marcomannic war; when the Czesars had become cosmo- 
politan sovereigns of the Roman Empire, rather than emperors of Rome; 
Greek, in letters, appears to have assumed a complete ascendancy. Greek 
literature has the names of Plutarch, Appian, Arrian, Herodian (the his- 
torian), Lucian, Pausanias, Dion Cassius, Galen, Sextus Empiricus, Epic- 
tetus, Ptolemy. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote his philosophy in 
Greek. The poets, such as they were, chiefly of the didactic class, Oppian, 
Nicander, are Greeks. (See, in Fynes Clinton’s Appendix to Fasti Ro- 
mani, the catalogue of Greek authors.) Latin literature might seem to 
have been in a state of suspended animation after Quintilian, the Plinys, 
and Tacitus. Not merely are there no writers of name who have survived, 
but there hardly seem to have been any. From Juvenal to Claudian there 
is scarcely a poet. The fragments of Fronto, lately discovered, do not 
make us wish for more of a writer who had greater fame than most of his 
day. Apuleius was an African. 

Jurisprudence alone maintained the dignity and dominion of Latin. The 


Cuap. I. CHURCH OF ROME GREEK. 55 


The Greek Old Testament was read in the synagogues 
of the foreign Jews. The churches, formed sometimes 
on the foundation, to a certain extent on the model, of 
the synagogues, would adhere for some time, no doubt, 
to their language. The Gospels and the Apostolic 
writings, so soon as they became part of the public 
worship, would be read, as the Septuagint was, in their 
original tongue. All the Christian extant writings 
which appeared in Rome and in the West are Greek, 
or were originally Greek, the Epistles of Clement, 
the Shepherd of Hermas, the Clementine Recognitions 
and Homilies; the works of Justin Martyr, down to 
Caius and Hippolytus the author of the Refutation of 
All Heresies. The Octavius of Minucius Felix,? and 
the Treatise of Noyatian on the Trinity, are the ear- 
liest known works of Latin Christian literature which 
came from Rome. So was it too in Gaul: there the 
first Christians were settled chiefly in the Greek cities, 
which owned Marseilles as their parent, and which 
retained the use of Greek as their vernacular tongue. 
Trenzeus wrote in Greek ; the account of the Martyrs 
of Lyons and Vienne is in Greek. Vestiges of the old 
Greek ritual long survived not only in Rome, but also 
in some of the Gallic churches. The Kyrie eleison 
still lingers in the Latin service. The singular fact, 


great lawyers, Ulpian, Paulus, and their colleagues, are the only famous 
writers. Latin law alone, of Latin letters, was studied in the schools of 
the East. The Greek writers of the day were many of them ignorant of 
Latin. 

1 Ubrigens war die Griechische Sprache noch fast die einzige Kirchen- 
sprache. Gieseler, i. p. 203. (Compare the passage.) 

2 Some place the Octavius in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, others be- 
tween Tertullian and Cyprian. Gieseler, note, p. 207. 

3 Martene, de Antiquis Ecclesie ritibus, i. p. 102: he quotes the anony- 
nous Turonius. Nos canimus illud Grecé juxta morem antiquum Roma 


δ0 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


related by the historian Sozomen, that, for the first cen- 
turies, there was no public preaching in Rome, here 
finds its explanation. Greek was the ordinary lan- 
guage of the community, but among the believers and 
worshippers may have been Latins, who understood 
not, or understood imperfectly, the Greek. The Gos- 
pel or sacred writings were explained according to the 
capacities of the persons present. Hippolytus indeed 
composed, probably delivered, homilies in Greek, in 
imitation of Origen, who, when at Rome, may have 
preached in Greek ; and this is spoken of as something 
440-461. new. Pope Leo I. was the first celebrated 
Latin preacher, and his brief and emphatic sermons 
read like the first essays of a rude and untried elo- 
quence, rather than the finished compositions which 
would imply a long study and cultivation of pulpit 
oratory. Compare them with Chrysostom.1 

Africa,” not Rome, gave birth to Latin Christianity. 


ne ecclesize, cui tam Greci quam Latini solebant antiquitus deservire, et a 
Grecis habitabatur maxima pars Italix, et segg. This is evidence for the 
Church of Tours. It is by no means clear when the Latin service began, 
eyen in Rome. There is much further illustration of the coexistence of the 
Latin and Greek service in the West, to a late period. Compare Martene, 
iii. 35. The Epistle and Gospel were read in both languages to a late 
period. Mabillon, Iter Italicum, ii. pp. 168 and 453. In Southern Gaul 
Latin had not entirely dispossessed Greek in the fifth century: Greek was 
still spoken by part of the population of Arles. - (See Fauriel, Gaule Méri- 
dionale, i. p. 432.) A Saint Martial de Limoges on chantait en Gree dans 
le x. siecle ἃ la Messe du jour de la Pentecdte le Gloria, le Sanctus, ’ Ag- 
nus, &c. Ce fait est établi par un MS. de la Bibliothéque Royale, 4° 4458. 
Jourdain, Traductions d’Aristote, p. 44. 

1 Τὴ Rome neither the Bishop nor any one else publicly preached to the 
people, οὔτε δὲ ὁ ἐπίσκοπος οὔτε ἄλλός τις ἐνθάδε ἐπ᾽ ἐκκλησίας διδάσκει. 
Η. E. vii.19. In Alexandria the bishop alone preached. Compare Bun- 
sen’s Hippolytus, vol. i. p. 318. 

2 Of Africa Greek was the general language no further East than the 

» Cyrenaica; westward the old Punic language prevailed, even where the 
Roman conquerors had superinduced Latin. Even Tertullian wrote also 


Cuap. I. AFRICAN ORIGIN OF LATIN CHRISTIANITY. δ᾽ 


Tertullian was the first Latin writer, at least the first 


who commanded the public ear; and there Afvien parent 
- δ : of Latin 
is strong ground for supposing that, since Christianity. 


Tertullian quotes the sacred writings perpetually and 
copiously, the earliest of those many Latin versions, 
noticed by Augustine, and on which Jerome grounded 
his Vulgate, were African.’ Cyprian kept up the tra- 
dition of ecclesiastical Latin. Arnobius, too, was an 
African.” 

Thus the Roman church was but one of the confed- 
eration of Greek religious republics, founded ¢, jen of 
by Christianity. As of Apostolic origin, still (ur sene 


of Christen- 
more as the church of the capital of the °°" 


world, it was, of course, of paramount dignity and im- 
portance. It is difficult to exaggerate the height at 
which Rome, before the foundation of Constantinople, 


in Greek. Latiné guoqgue ostendam virgines nostras velari oportere. (De 
Virgin. yeland.) Sed et huic materiz propter suayiludios nostros Graco 
quoque stylo satisfecimus. De Coron. Mil. vi. 

1 Vetus hee interpretatio vix dubitari potest quin inter eam gentem que 
Grece lingue minimé perita esset, nata fuerit, hoc est in Afric&é. Lach- 
man, Pref. in-Nov. Test. Lachman quotes a learned Dissertation of Car- 
dinal Wiseman as conclusive on this point. In this Dissertation (reprinted 
in his Essays, London, 1854) the author ventures on the forlorn hope of the 
vindication of the disputed text in St. John’s Epistle. Ican only express 

my surprise that so acute a writer should see any force in such arguments. 
- But the Dissertation on African Latinity appears to me valuable, scholar- 
like, and sound. The dubious passage of St. Augustine, on which alone 
rests the tradition of the Versio /tala, I would read, after Bentley, as Bishop 
Marsh and most of the later biblical scholars, ///Ja.— Marsh’s Introduction, 
note, vol. ii. p. 623. ; 

I would suggest, as a curious investigation, if it has not yet been executed 
by any competent scholar (which I presume not to assert), a critical com- 
parison of the Latinity of the old version, as published by Sabatier, and 
even of the Vulgate, with the Latin of Tertullian, Cyprian, Apuleius of 
Madaura, and other African writers. 

2 Minucius Felix, Arnobius, Lactantius are to the Greek divines what 
Cicero was to the Greek philosophers—writers of popular abstracts in , 
-hat which in his hands was, in theirs aspired to be, elegant Latin. 


58 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


stood above the other cities of the earth; the centre 
of commerce, the centre of affairs, the centre of 
empire. The Christians, like the rest of mankind, 
were constantly ebbing and flowing out of Rome and 
into Rome. The church of the capital could not but 
assume something of the dignity of the capital; it was 
constantly receiving, as it were, the homage of all the 
foreign Christians, who, from interest, business, ambi- 
tion, curiosity, either visited or took up their residence 
in the Eternal City. 

The Roman Church, if it had become prematurely 
Latin, would have been isolated and set apart from the 
rest of Christendom ; remaining Greek, it became also 
the natural and inevitable centre of Christianity. The 
public documents of the Christian world spoke through- 
out the same language ; no interpretation was neces- 
sary between the East and the West.!. To the unity 
of the Church this was of infinite importance. The 
Roman Christians and their Bishop were the consti- 
tuted guardians and protectors of what may be called 
the public interests of Christianity. In Rome they 
beheld, or had the earliest intelligence of, every revolu- 
tion in the empire; they had the first cognizance of 
all the Imperial edicts which might affect the brethren. 
On them, even if they had no access to the counsels or 
to the palace of the Emperor, on their influence, on 
their conduct, might in some degree depend the fate 
of Christendom. They were in the van, the first to 
foresee the threatened persecution, the first to suffer. 
The Bishop of Rome, as long as the Emperor ruled in 


1 As late as the middle of the third century, after the Novatian schism, 
Pope Cornelius writes in Greek to Fabius of Antioch. Eusebius records as 
Something new and extraordinary that letters from Cyprian to the Asiatic 
bishops are in Latin. H. E. vi. 43. 


Cuar. I ROME THE CENTRE OF CONTROVERSIES. 59 


Rome, was at once in the post of the greatest distinc- 
tion, and in that of the greatest difficulty and danger. 
The Christian world would look with trembling 
interest on his conduct, as his example might either 
glorify or disgrace the Church ; on his prudence or his 
temerity, on his resolution or on his weakness, might 
depend the orders despatched to every prefect or pro- 
consul in the Empire. Local oppressions or local per- 
secutions would be confined to a city or a province; 
in Rome might be the signal for general proscription. 
The eyes of all Christendom must thus have con- 
stantly been fixed on Rome and on the Roman Bishop. 
But if Rome, or the Church of Rome, was thus the 
centre of the more peaceful influences of Centre of 
Christianity, and of the hopes and fears Of ΤΕΥ 
the Christian world, it was no less inevitably the 
chosen battle field of her civil wars; and Christianity 
has ever more faithfully recorded her dissensions than 
her conquests. In Rome every feud which distracted 
the infant community reached its height ; nowhere do 
the Judaizing tenets seem to have been more obstinate, 
or to have held so long and stubborn a conflict with 
more full and genuine Christianity. In Rome every 
heresy, almost every heresiarch, found welcome recep- 
tion. All new opinions, all attempts to harmonize 
Christianity with the tenets of the Greek philosophers, 
with the Oriental religions, the Cosmogonies, the 
Theophanies, and Mysteries of the East, were boldly 
agitated, either by the authors of the Gnostic apout 
systems or by their disciples. Walentinus the *” τ 
Alexandrian was himself in Rome, so also was Mar- 
cion of Sinope. The Phrygian Montanus, with his 
prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla, if not present, 


00 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


had their sect, a powerful sect, in Rome and in Africa. 
In Rome their convert, for a time at least, was the 
Pope; in Africa, Tertullian. Somewhat later, the 
precursors of the great Trinitarian controversy came 
from all quarters. Praxeas, an Asiatic ; Theodotus, a 
Byzantine; Artemon, an Asiatic; Noetus, a Smyr- 
niote,.at least his disciples, the Deacon Epigenes and 
Cleomenes, taught at Rome. Sabellius, from Ptole- 
mais in Cyrene, appeared in person; his opinions took 
their full development in Rome. Not only do all these 
controversies betray the inexhaustible fertility of the 
Greek or Eastern imagination, not only were they all 
drawn from Greek or Oriental doctrines, but they must 
have been still agitated, discussed, ramified into their 
parts and divisions, through the versatile and subtile 
Greek. They were all strangers and foreigners ; not 
one of all these systems originated in Rome, in Italy, 
or in Africa! On all these opinions the Bishop of 
Rome was almost compelled to sit in judgment; he 
must receive or reject, authorize or condemn; he was a 
proselyte, whom it would be the ambition of all to gain. 
No one unfamiliar with Greek, no one not to a great 
extent Greek by birth, by education, or by habit, could 
in any degree comprehend the conflicting theories. 
The Judaizing opinions, combated by St. Paul in 
Judaving [185 Epistle to the Romans, maintained their 
Christianity. oround among some of the Roman Chris- 


1A passage of Aulus Gellius illustrates the conscious inadequacy of the 
Latin to express, notwithstanding the innovations of Cicero, the finer dis- 
tinctions of the Greek philosophy: Hac Favorinum dicentem audivi Greed 
oratione, cujus sententias, quantum meminisse potui, retuli. Amvenitates 
vero et copias ubertatesque verborum, Latina omnis facundia vix quidem 
indipisci potuerit. Noct. Att. xii. Favorinus, of the time of Hadrian, 
was a native of Arles in Gaul. 


Cap. I. JUDAIZING IN ROME. 61 


tians for above a century or more after that Apostle’s 
death. A remarkable monument attests their power 
and vitality. There can be shght doubt that the 
author of that singular work, commonly »,, giemen- 
called the Clementina, was a Roman, or %* 

rather a Greek domiciled in Rome.! Its Roman origin 
is almost proved by the choice of the hero in this 
earliest of religious romances. Clement, who sets 
forth as a heathen philosopher in search of truth, be- 
comes the companion of St. Peter in the East, the wit- 
ness of his long and stubborn strife with his great 
adversary, Simon the Magician ; and if the letter pre- 
fixed to the work be a genuine part of it,? becomes the 
successor of St. Peter in the see of Rome. It bears in 
its front, and throughout, the character of a romance ; 
it can hardly be considered even as mythic history. 
Its groundwork is that so common in the latest Greek 
and in the Latin comedy, and in the Greek novels ; 
adventures of persons cast away at sea, and sold into 
slavery ; lost children by strange accidents restored to 
their parents, husbands to their wives ; amusing scenes 
in what we may call the middle or mercantile life of 
the times. It might seem borrowed, in its incidents, 
from a play of Plautus or Terence, or from their origi- 
nals ; a kind of type of the Athiopics of Bishop Heli- 
odorus, or the Cherea and Callirhoe. The religious 
interest is still more remarkable, and no doubt faith- 


1 This is the unanimous opinion of those who, in later days, have criti- 
cally investigated the Clementina— Schlieman, Neander, Baur, Gieseler. 
ἐγὼ Κλήμης ‘Pwyaiog ὦν, in init. This does not prove much. 

21 entertain some doubt on this point. A good critical edition of this 
work, in its various forms, is much to be desired.* 

*There are now two good editions of the Clementina —1. by Schwegler, Stut- 
gard, 1847; 2. The last and best, by Dressel, Gottingen, 1853; besides, 3. The Latin 
translation of Rufinus, by Gersdorf, Leipsic, 1838. 


62 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


fully represents the views and tenets of a certain sect 
or class of Christians. It is the work of a Judaizing 
Christian, according to a very peculiar form of Ebion- 
itism.! The scene is chiefly laid in Palestine and its 
neighborhood, its original language is Greek. The 
views of the author as to the rank, influence, and rela- 
tive position of the Apostles, is among its most singu- 
lar characteristics. So far from ascribing any primacy 
to St. Peter, though St. Peter is throughout the leading 
personage, James, Bishop of Jerusalem, is the acknowl- 
edged head of Christendom, the arbiter of Christian 
doctrine, the Bishop of Bishops, to whom Peter him- 
self bows with submissive reverence. Of any earlier 
visits of Peter to Rome the author is ignorant. Clem- 
ent encounters the Apostle in Palestine; in Palestine 
or in the East is carried on the whole strife with Simon 
Magus. Yet Peter is the Apostle of the Gentiles, to 
Peter the heathens owe their Christianity. More than 
this, there is a bitter hatred to St. Paul, which betrays 
itself in brief, covert, sarcastic allusion, not to be mis- 
taken in its object or aim. The whole purpose of the 
work is to assert a Petrine, a Judaizing, an anti-Pau- 
line Christianity. The Gospel is but a republication 
of the Law, that is, the pure, genuine, original Law, 
which emanated from God. God is light, his Wisdom 
or his Spirit (these are identified and are both the Son 
of God) has dwelt in different men, from Adam to 


1 This is abundantly proved by Schlieman and by Neander. 

2 Jn the letter of St. Peter, τινὲς yap τῶν ἀπὸ ἐϑνῶν, τὸ δι’ ἐμοῦ νόμιμον 
ἀπεδοκίμασαν κῆρυγμα, τοῦ EXS pod ἀνϑρώπου GvOMOV τινα καὶ φλυ- 
apadn προσηκάμενοι διδασκαλίαν. If we could doubt that here St. Paul, 
not Simon Magus is meant, the allusions xi. 35, xvii. 19, and elsewhere, to 
the very acts and words of St. Paul are conclusive. Compare Schlieman, 
Die Clementine, 74, 96, 534, &e. 


Cuap. I. JUDAIZING IN ROME. 63 


Jesus. The whole world is one vast system of Dual- 
isms, or Antagonisms. The antagonism of Simon 
Magus to St. Peter is chiefly urged in the Clementine 
homilies ; but there are manifest hints, more perhaps 
than hints, of a second antagonism between Peter and 
Paul, the teacher of Christianity with the Law, and 
the teacher of Christianity without the Law. Here 
then is the representative of what can scarcely be sup- 
posed an insignificant party in Rome (the various 
forms, reconstructions, and versions in which the Clem- 
entina appear, whole, or in fragments, attest their 
wide-spread popularity) who does not scruple to couple 
fiction with the most sacred names. Of the whole 
party it must have been the obvious interest to exalt 
St. Peter, to assert him as the founder, the Bishop of 
the true Church in Rome; and it is certainly singular 
that in all the early traditions, which are more than 
allusions to St. Peter at Rome, Simon Magus appears as 
his shadow. Has, then, the myth grown out of the pure 
fiction, or is the fiction but an expansion of the myth ?1 

At all events these works are witnesses to the perpe- 
tuity and strength, to a late period, of these Judaizing 
opinions in Rome.? Their fictitious form in no way 
invalidates their authority as expressing living opinions, 
tenets, and sentiments. If not Roman (I have slight 
doubt on this head), there is an attestation to the wide- 
spread oppugnancy of a Petrine and a Pauline party ; 


1 Strictly speaking the authority for Simon Magus being at Rome 1s 
earlier than that for St. Peter. The famous passage of Justin Martyr on 
the inscription Semoni Sanco, is about twenty years older than the Epistle 
of Dionysius of Corinth (A. D. 171),—the first distinct assertion of St. 
Peter in Rome. Euseb. H. E. ii. 18, 14. 

2Schlieman assigns the Recognitions to some time between 212 and 
280 — the Clementina, no doubt, are of an earlier date. p. 327, et seqq. 


64 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


to strong divergence of opinion as to the relative rank 
and dignity of the Apostles. 

Out of the antagonism between Judaic and anti- 
Controversy Judaic Christianity arose the first conflict, in 
about Easter. which the Bishop of Rome, as the leader of 
a great part of the Christian confederation, assumed 
unwonted authority. Difference of opinion did not 
necessarily lead to open strife — from difference of ob- 
servance it was unavoidable. The controversy about 
s.p. 109. the time of keeping Easter, or rather the 
Paschal Feast, had slept from the days of Polycarp 
and Anicetus of Rome. Towards the close of the 
second century it broke out again. Rome, it is re- 
markable, now held the anti-Judaic usage of the varia- 
ble feast, and in this concurred with the churches of 
Palestine, of Czsarea, and Jerusalem. These were 
chiefly of Gentile descent, and probably from near 
neighborhood to the Jews were most averse to the 
usages of that hostile and odious race. The Asiatic 
churches had adhered to the ancient Jewish custom, 
the observance of the 14th day of the month (Nisan). 
The controversy seems to have been awakened in 
Rome by one Blastus,! denounced as endeavoring 
secretly to enslave the Church to Judaism. The 
Bishop Victor deposed the obstinate schismatic from 
a.v. 19. the Roman Presbytery. But the strife was 
not confined to Rome. The Asiatic Christians, under 
Polycrates of Ephesus, maintained their own, the Ju- 
daic usage, sanctioned, as was asserted, by the martyr 


1Est preterea his omnibus Blastus accedens, qui latenter Judaismum 
yult introducere. Pascha enim dicit non aliter custodiendum esse nisi 
secundum legem Moysi xiiii mensis.—Prescript. Heret. This is from 
an addition, probably an ancient one, to the Treatise of Tertullian. 


Cuap. I. CONTROVERSY ABOUT EASTER. 65 


Polycarp, by Philip the Deacon, and even by St. 
John. Victor, supported by the Bishops, Theophilus 
of the Palestinian Czxesarea, by Narcissus of Jerusalem, 
by some in Pontus, in Osroene, in Gaul, and by Bac- 
chylides of Corinth, peremptorily demanded a Council 
to judge the Asiatic Bishops; threatened or actually 
pronounced a disruption of all communion with those 
who presumed to maintain their stubborn difference 
from himself and the rest of the Christian world.! 
The strife was appeased by the interposition of Ire- 
nus, justly, according to the Ecclesiastical historian, 
called a Man of Peace. Irenzeus was Bishop of 
Vienne in Gaul; and so completely is Christianity 
now one world, that a Bishop of Gaul allays a feud in 
which the Bishop of Rome is in alliance with the 
Bishops of Syria and of the remoter East, against those 
of Asia Minor. Africa does not look with indifference 
on the controversy. Irenzeus had already written an 
epistle to Blastus in Rome, reproving him as author of 
the schism: he now wrote to the Bishop Victor, assert- 
ing the right of the Churches to maintain their own 
usages on such points, and recommending a milder 
tone on these ceremonial questions.” 

It was not till the Council of Nicea that Christen- 
dom acquiesced in the same Paschal Cycle. 

The reign of Commodus, commencing with the last 
twenty years of the second century, is .an Reign of 

ommodus 

epoch in the history of Western Christendom. 180-198. 
The feud between the Judaizing and anti-Judaizing 

1 Euseb. H. E. v. 15. 

2 The Latin book ascribed to Novatian, against the Jewish distinction of 
meats, shows Judaism still struggling within the church on its most vital 


peculiarities. The author of this tract wrote also against circumcision and 
the Jewish Sabbath. 


VOL. I. 5 


00 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. - Boox I 


parties in Rome seemed to expire with the controversy 
about Easter. The older Gnostic systems of Valenti- 
nus and Marcion had had their day. *“Montanism was 
expelled from Rome to find refuge in Africa. In 
Africa Latin Christianity began to take its proper form 
in the writings of Tertullian. Rome was absorbed in 
the inevitable disputes concerning the Divinity ofthe 


Saviour, the prelude to the great Trinitarian contro-' 


versy. The Bishops of Rome, Eleutherius, still more 
Victor, and at the commencement of the third century 
Zephyrinus and Callistus, before dimly known by scat- 
tered allusions in Tertullian and Eusebius, and still 
later writers, have suddenly emerged into light in the 
contemporary work, justly, to all appearance, attrib- 


uted to Hippolytus Bishop of Portus.’ 


1 The Chevalier Bunsen’s very learned work has proved the authorship 
of Hippolytus to my full satisfaction —so likewise Dr. Wordsworth — Hip- 
polytus. I have also read the ‘ Hippolytus und Kallistus’ (just published), 
by J. Dillinger, the church historian; I must say with no conviction but 
of the author’s learning and ingenuity. It appears to me that M. Dollin- 
ger’s arguments against M. Bunsen (e. g. from the ignorance of St. Jerome) 
are quite as fatal to his own theory. I still think it most probable that 
Hippolytus was Bishop of Portus, and that these suburbicarian bishops 
formed or were part of a kind of presbytery or college with the bishops of 
Rome. I hardly understand how those (seven) bishops (the cardinal- 
bishops) can have gained their peculiar relation to Rome, in later times, 
without any earlier tradition in their favor. The loose language of later 
Greek writers might easily make of a bishop, a member of such a presby- 
tery, a bishop in Rome, or even of Rome. More than one, at least, of these 
writers calls Hippolytus Bishop of Portus: and hence, too, he may have 
been sometimes described as Presbyter. 

Portus, there can be no doubt, was a very considerable town; but a new 
and flourishing haven cannot have grown up at the mouth of the Tiber, 
after half, at least, of the commerce and concourse of strangers had de- 
serted Rome, after the foundation of Constantinople, and during the Bar- 
barian invasions. Birkenhead would not have risen to rival Liverpool 
excepting in a most prosperous state of English trade. 

I cannot but regret that M. Déllinger’s book, so able, and in some re- 
spects so instructive, should be written with such a resolute (no doubt con- 
scientious) determination to make out a case. It might well be entitled 


‘ft 


Cuap. I. CONTROVERSY ABOUT EASTER. 67 


The Christians from the death of M. Aurelius, 
throughout the reign of Commodus, en- Marcia. 
joyed undisturbed peace with the civil government. 
But many of the victims of the persecution under 
Aurelius were pining in the unwholesome mines of 
Sardinia. Marcia, the favorite concubine of the Emperor 
Commodus, whom he treated as his wife, and who held 
the state of an Empress, was favorable to the Chris- 
tians: how far she herself had embraced the doctrines, 
how, if herself disposed to Christianity, she reconciled 
it with her life, does not appear.2- The Bishop Victor 
did not scruple (such scruples had been too fastidiously 
rigorous) to employ her influence for the release of his 


Apologia pro Callisto; and I must presume to say, in my judgment, a most 
unfortunate case for his own cause. Were I polemically disposed as to the 
succession to the Papacy, the authority and supremacy of the Bishop of 
Rome, or even the unity of the Church, I could hardly hope for so liberal a 
concession as that twice within thirty years, during the early part of the 
third century, rival bishops, one a most distinguished theologian, should 
set themselves up in Rome itself against the acknowledged Pope, and de- 
clare their own communities to be the true Church. Déllinger indeed 
could not but see, that, whoever the author, he writes, from station, from 
character, or from influence, as quite on a level with the Pope; he seems 
altogether unconscious of awe, and even of the respect for that office, which 
is of a later period. The Abbé Cruice, in his Histoire de 1’Eglise de Rome 
sous les Pontificats de St. Victor, St. Zephyrin, et de St. Calliste (Paris, 
1856), is bolder and more dutiful. With him the Popes are already in- 
vested in all their power (of excommunication), in their ex officio wisdom 
and holiness. They are all, by the magical prefix S, Saints; Victor and 
Callistus, on the authority of legend, martyrs. This unhistoric history (not 
unamusing), this theology without precision, seems to pass in France for 
profound learning. 

1 Asterius Urbanus apud Eusebium, H. E. v. 16. Compare Moyle’s 
works, ii. p. 265.— The peace lasted for thirteen years after the death of 
Maximilla the Montanist, just the period of the reign of Commodus. 

2 οὐδὲν δὲ ἀπεῖχε γαμετῆς γυναικὸς, ἀλλὰ πάντα ὑπῆρχεν ὅσα Σεβάστῃ 
πλὴν τοῦ πυρός. Herodian, i. 50. Her complicity in the murder of Com- 
modus was but to avert her own. Commodus must have been insane; 
Marcia strove, even with tears, to dissuade him from the disgrace of ap- 
pearing in public as a gladiator ; his two ministers joined their strong re- 
monstrances. Commodus, in revenge, marked down her name, and those 


68 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book I. 


exiled brethren: they all returned to Rome.! This 
Discordin State of peace seemed to quicken into more 
ay active life the brooding elements of discord, 
and to invite the founders of new systems, or their 
busy proselytes, to Rome. Already had spread to 
Europe, to Africa, to Rome itself, from the depths of 
Phrygia, the disciples of Montanus. It is probable 
Montanism. that these Montanist or kindred prophecies 
of coming wars, and the approaching Dissolution of 
the World (a vaticination which involved or rather 
signified to the jealous Roman ear only the ruin of the 
Empire), may have aided in exciting the religious ter- 
ror and indignation of the philosophic Emperor and of 
the Roman world against the Christians, and so have 
been one cause of the persecutions under Marcus Au- 
relius.2, Montanus himself, and Maximilla, his chief 
prophetess, seem not to have travelled beyond the con- 
fines of Phrygia.? But their followers swarmed over 
Christendom. ‘They dispersed or revealed to the initi- 
ated in countless books, the visions of Montanus, and 
his no less inspired female followers, Priscilla and Max- 
imilla.4 Montanism, strictly speaking, was no heresy ; 
in their notions of God and of Christ, these sectaries 
departed not from the received doctrine. But beyond, 
of Letus and Eclectus, his faithful counsellors, for death. The fatal tablet 
fell into the hands of Marcia. They anticipated their own doom by that 
of Commodus. Herodian, ibid. Marcia afterwards married Eclectus. — 
Dion Cassius, or Xiphylin, lvii: 4. 

1 Refutatio Heresium, p. 287. 

2 This further confirms the author’s view of the cause of the persecutions 
under M. Aurelius. Hist. of Christianity, Book ii. c. 7. 

ὃ Their fate was so obscure, that rumors spread abroad among their ene- 
mies that they had died like Judas, had hanged themselves. See the un- 
certain author quoted by Eusebius. H. E. ν. 16. 


4 This we learn from the Refutatio Heresium. ὧν βίβλους ἀπείρους ἔχον 
τες πλανῶνται, p. 275. 


Cnar. I. MONTANISM. 6S 


and as the consummation and completion of the Chris- 
tian Revelation, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, dwelt 
in Montanus and the Prophetesses. At intervals, 
throughout the annals of Christianity, the Holy Ghost 
has been summoned by the hopes, felt as present by the 
kindled imaginations, been proclaimed by the passionate 
enthusiasm of a few, as accomplishing in them the im- 
perfect revelation ; as the third revelation — which is to 
supersede and to fulfil the Law and the Gospel. This 
notion will appear again in the middle ages as the doc- 
trine of the Abbot Joachim, of John Peter de Oliva 
and the Fraticelli; in a milder form it is that of George 
Fox and Barclay. The land of heathen orgies was the 
natural birthplace of that wild Christian mysticism ; it 
was the Phrygian fanaticism speaking a new language ; 
and as the ancient Phrygian rites of Cybele found wel- 
come reception in heathen Rome, so also that, which 
was appropriately called Cataphrygianism, in the Chris- 
tian Church.! <A stern intolerant asceticism, which had 
already begun to harden around the Christian heart, 
a rigor, a perfection of manners as of creed (so they 
deemed it) beyond the Law, the Prophets, and the 
Gospel, distinguished the Montanists, who, by their 
own asserted superiority, condemned the rest of the 
Christian world.? They had fasts far more long and 
severe, their own festivals, their own food, chiefly 
roots ; 3 they held the austerest views on the connection 
of the sexes; if they did not absolutely condemn, 
hardly permitted marriage ; a second marriage was an 

1 Compare the Super alta vectus Atys with the extrayagancies of Mon- 
tanism. 

2 πλεῖον δὲ αὐτῶν φάσκοντες ὡς μεμαϑηκέναι, ἤ ἐκ νόμου Kal προφητῶν 


καὶ τῶν Ἐαγγελίων. Euseb. Η. E, p. 275. 
8 The author of the Refutatio speaks of their ξηροφάγια. 


70 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


inexpiable sin. Their visions enwrapt the imagination, 
their rigor enthralled minds of congenial tempera- 
ment. They seized on the African passions, they fell 
in with the austerity, they satisfied the holy ambition 
of Tertullian, who would not rest below what seemed 
the most lofty, self-sacrificing Christianity. In Rome 
itself (so Tertullian writes, with mingled indignation 
and contempt) the Bishop had been seized with ad- 
miration, had acknowledged the inspiration of the 
Prophets ; he had issued letters of peace in their favor, 
which had tended to quiet the agitated churches of 
Asia and of Phrygia. But at the instigation of Prax- 
eas the Heresiarch, if not the author, among the first 
teachers of that doctrine, afterwards denounced as Pa- 
tripassianism, he had revoked his letters, denied their 
spiritual gifts, and driven out the Prophets in disgrace.! 

The indignation of Tertullian at the rejection of his 
Montanist opinions urges him to arraign the Pope, with 
what justice, to what extent we know not, as having 
embraced the Patripassian opinions of Praxeas. This 
Monarchianism, or, as it was branded by the more 
Monarehian. Odious name, Patripassianism, was the contro- 
ΟΣ versy which raged during the episcopate of 
Victor, Zephyrinus, and Callistus.? It called forth the 

1 Τία duo negotia Diaboli Praxeas Rome procuravit, prophetiam expulit 
et hxresim intulit. Paracletum fugavit, et Patrem crucifixit. Adversus 
Praxeam, ο. i. Who was this bishop of Rome? It has been usually sup- 
posed Victor. Neander (Anti-Gnosticus, p. 486) argues strongly, I think 
not conclusively, that it was his predecessor Eleutherius. The spurious 
passage, at the close of the De Prescrip. Heret., which, though not Ter- 
tullian’s, seems ancient, has these words: — “‘ Praxeas quidem hresim in- 
troduxit, quam Victorinus (the Bishop Victor?) corroborare curavit.” 

2 The oppugnancy of the Latin and Greek mind is well illustrated by the 
contrast of Tertullian with the early Greek writers, 6. g- Justin Martyr. In 


Tertullian there is no courteous respect for the Greek philosophy: he is 
dead to the beauty of the dying hours of Socrates; his Demon is a devil. 


ὕπαρ. I. MONARCHIANISM. ig 


‘Refutation of Heresies.’ That paramount doctrine 
of Christianity, the nature of Christ, his relation to the 
primal and paternal Godhead, which had been con- 
tested in a vaguer and more imaginative form under 
the Gnostic systems, must be brought to a direct issue. 
Rome, though the war was waged by Greek comba- 
tants in the Greek language, must be the chosen battle- 
field of the conflict. There was division in the Church. 
Pope Victor, a stern and haughty Prelate, who had 
demanded implicit submission to his opinions on the 
question of Easter, now seemed stunned and bewil- 
dered by the polemic din and tumult.! The feebler 
Zephyrinus, through his long pontificate, vacillated and 
wavered to and fro. Callistus, if we are to believe his 
implacable and uncompromising adversary, not only 
departed from the true faith, but left a sect, bearing 
his name, to perpetuate his reprehensible opinions. 
From Theodotus, a follower of Valentinus, to apout 
Noetus and his disciple Epigonus, there was “” 
“No man comes to God but by Christ; of these things the heathen knew 
nothing.” T. de Anim. i. 39. Compare Ritter, Gesch. Christ. Philosophie, 
p. 335. Tertullian cannot conceive immaterial being. Nihil incorporale 
quod non est. De Carn. Christ. Neander, iii. p. 965. 

1 Victor condemned indeed and excommunicated Theodotus, who re- 
duced the Saviour to his naked manhood; he was but an image of Melchis- 
edek. This was asserted fifty years later, when the doctrine of the naked 
manhood of Christ was taught in its most obnoxious form by Artemas, and 
afterwards by Paul of Samosata. These teachers appealed to the unbroken 
tradition of the church, from the Apostles to their own days, in favor of 
their own tenet. It was answered that Victor had condemned Theodotus, 
the author of this God-denying apostacy; ὅτι Βίκτωρ τὸν σκυτέα Θεοδότον, 
τὸν ἀρχηγὸν ταύτης τῆς ἀρνησιϑέου ἀποστασίας, ἀπεκῆρυξε τῆς κοινω- 
νίας, πρῶτον εἴποντα ψιλὸν ανϑρωπον τὸν Χριστόν. Euseb. H. E. ν. 15 
Epiphan. 54,55. Compare Pseudo-Tertullian de Prescrip. Heret. On the 
Theodoti, compare Bunsen, Hippolytus, p. 92. Yet Victor, it should seem, 
was deceived by Praxeas (see note above). Florinus, condemned with 


Blastus the Quartodeciman, was a Monarchian; but there were manifestly 
many shades of Monarchianism. 


72 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book I. 


a constant succession of strangers, each with his own 
νου... system. ‘The shades of distinction were infi- 
mee nite, from that older Ebionitish or Judaic 
doctrine, which kept down the Saviour to mere naked 
manhood, hardly superior to the prophets; and that 
which approximated to, if it did not express in absolute 
terms, the full Godhead of the Nicene Creed. The 
broad divisions, up to a certain period, had been three- 
fold: 1. Those who altogether denied the Godhead — 
the extreme Ebionites. 2. Those who denied the 
Manhood—all the Gnostic sects. In their diverging 
forms of Docetism, these held the unreal, or but seem- 
ing human nature of the Redeemer ; whether, as Val- 
entinus said, the Aon Christ had descended on the 
man Jesus, the psychic or animal man; or as Marcion, 
maintained the manhood to be a mere phantasm. 3. 
All the rest (even the Roman Ebionites, represented by 
the Clementine Homilies) acknowledged some Deity, 
some efflux, eradiation, emanation of the primal God- 
head. The Logos, the Wisdom, the Spirit of God 
(the distinction was not always maintained, nor as yet 
accurately defined) indwelt in various manners and 
degrees within the Christ. The difficulty was to claim 
the plenary Godhead for the Son, the Redeemer, with- 
out infringing on the sole, original Principality of the 
Father; to admit subordination without inferiority. 
So grew up a new division between the Monarchians, 
the assertors of one immutable primary Principle, who 
yet acknowledged the divinity of the Redeemer ; and 
those who, while they mostly acknowledged in terms, 
were impatient of any real or definite subordination. 
Each drew an awful conclusion from the tenets of his 
adversary ; each used an opprobrious term which ap- 


Cup. I. MONARCHIANISM. he 


pealed to the resentful passions. The Monarchians 
were charged with the appalling doctrine, that the 
Father, the one primary Principle, must have suftered 
on the cross; they were called Patripassians. They 
retorted on those who were unable, or who refused to 
define the subordination of the Son, as worshippers of 
two Gods, Ditheists. Sabellius, who at first repressed, 
or brought forward his views with reserve and caution, 
attempted to mediate, and was disdainfully cast aside 
by both parties. The notion of the same God under 
three manifestations, forms, or names, seemed to annul 
the separate personality of each.! 

Pope Victor saw but the beginning of this strife. 
With Pope Zephyrinus, whose Episcopate of 4-p. 201-219. 
nineteen years commences with the third century, ap- 
pears his antagonist, the antagonist of his successor 
Callistus, the author of the Refutation of all Heresies. 
According to his own distinct statement, this writer 
was not a casual and transient visitor in Rome, but 
domiciled in the city or in its neighborhood, invested 
in some high public function,? and holding acknowl- 
edged influence and authority. He describes himself 
as the head of what may be called the orthodox party, 
resisting and condemning the wavering policy of one 
Pope, actually excommunicating another, and handing 
him down to posterity as an heresiarch of a sect called 
after his name. Who then was this antagonist? What 
rank and position did he hold? Fifty years «.v. 201-250. 


1Sabellius, according to the Refutation of Heresies, might have been 
kept within the bounds of orthodoxy, had he not been driven into ex- 
tremes by the injudicious violence of the Pope. 

2QOrigen visited Rome about the year 211, but his visit was not long; 
and, with all his fame and learning, to the height of which he had not at- 
‘tained, he was a stranger, without rank or authority. He was not even in 
orders. 


74 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IL 


later! the Roman church comprehended, besides its 
Bishop, forty-six Presbyters, and seven Deacons,” with 
their subordinate officers. Each Presbyter doubtless 
presided over a separate community, each with its ba- 
silica, scattered over the wide circuit of the city: they 
were the primary Parish Priests of Rome. But be- 
sides these, were Suburbicarian Bishops of the adjacent 
towns, Ostia, Tibur, Portus, and others (six or seven), 
who did not maintain their absolute independence on the 
metropolis, each in the seclusion of his own community ; 
they held their synods in Rome, but as yet with Greek 
equality rather than Roman subordination ; they were 
the initiatory College of Cardinals (who still take some 
of their titles from these sees), but with the Pope as 
one of this coequal college, rather than the dominant, 
certainly not the despotic, head. 

Of all these suburban districts at this time Portus 
was the most considerable, and most likely to be occu- 
pied by a distinguished prelate. Portus, from the 
reign of Trajan, had superseded Ostia as the haven 
of Rome. It was a commercial town of growing 
extent and opulence, at which most of the strangers 
from the East who came by sea landed or set sail. 
Through Portus, no doubt, most of the foreign Chris- 
Hippolytus. tians found their way to Rome.? Of this 
city at the present time, it can hardly be doubted, 
Hippolytus was the bishop, Hippolytus who afterwards 
rose to the dignity of saint and martyr, and whose 


1 Calculating from the accession of Zephyrinus to the Decian persecution. 
Letter of Pope Cornelius in Euseb. H. E. vi. 42. 

2 Each deacon appears to have comprehended under his charitable super- 
intendence two out of the fourteen regions of the city. 

8 Τὴ the letters of Aneas Sylvius there is a curious account of a visit 
which he made to the site of this ancient bishopric, then held by one of his 
friends. Dr. Wordsworth has some interesting details concerning Portus. 


Cap. I. PORTUS. yt 


statue, discovered in the Laurentian cemetery, now 
stands in the Vatican. Conclusive internal evidence 
indicates Hippolytus as the author of the Refutation 
of all Heresies. If any one might dare to confront 
the Bishop of Rome, it was the Bishop of Portus. 

Zephyrinus, according to his unsparing adversary, 
was an unlearned man; ignorant of the lan- pope zephy- 

. yYinus, 202- 

guage and definitions of ane Church ; avari- 219. 
cious, venal, of unsettled principles ; ; not holding the 
balance between conflicting opinions, but ee 
adverse tenets with all the zeal, of which a mind 
so irresolute was capable. He was now a disciple of 
Cleomenes, the successor of Noetus, and teacher of 
Noetianism in Rome (Noetus held the extreme Mo- 
narchian doctrine, so as to be obnoxious to the charge 
of Patripassianism), now of Sabellius, who, become 
more bold, had matured his scheme, which was odious 
alike to the other two contending parties. Zephyrinus 
was entirely governed by the crafty Callistus; and 
thus constantly driven back, by his fears or confusion 
of mind, to opposite tenets, and involved in the most 
glaring contradictions. At one time he publicly used 
the startling language: “1 acknowledge one God, 
Jesus Christ, and none beside him, that was born and 
suffered ;”? at another, he refuted himself, ‘“ It was not 
the Father that died, but the Son.” So through the 
long episcopate of Zephyrinus there was endless con- 
flict and confusion. The author of the Refutation 
steadily, perseveringly, resisted the vacillating Pontiff ; 
he himself was branded with the opprobrious appella- 
tion of Ditheist. 

Callistus, who had ruled the feeble mind oe 
of Zephyrinus, aspired to be his successor ; 223, 


76 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


as head, it should seem, of one of the contending 
parties, he attained the object of his ambition. The 
memory of theologic adversaries is tenacious. His 
enemies were not likely to forget the early life of 
Callistus, which must have been public and notorious, 
at least among the Christians. He had been a slave 
in the family of Carpophorus, a wealthy Christian, in 
the Emperor’s household. He was set up by his mas- 
ter in a bank in the quarter called the Piscina Publica. 
The Christian brethren and widows, on the credit of 
the name of Carpophorus, deposited their savings in 
this bank of Callistus. He made away with the funds, 
was called to account, fled, embarked on board a ship, 
was pursued, threw himself into the sea — was rescued 
—brought back to Rome, and ignominiously con- 
signed to hard labor in the public workhouse. The 
merciful Carpophorus cared not for his own losses, but 
for those of the poor widows; he released the prisoner 
on the pretext of collecting moneys, which he pretended 
to be due to him. Callistus raised a riot in a Jewish 
synagogue, was carried before the Prefect Fuscianus, 
scourged and transported to the mines in Sardinia. 
On the release of the exiles through the intercession 
of Marcia, Callistus, though not on the list furnished 
by the Bishop Victor, persuaded Hyacinthus, the Eu- 
nuch appointed to bear the order for the release of 
the captives to the governor, to become responsible 
for his liberation also.1 He returned to Rome; the 
Pope Victor, though distressed by the affair, was too 

1 This singular picture of Roman and Christian middle life has an air of 
minute truthfulness, though possibly somewhat darkened by polemic hos- 
tility. Some have supposed that they detect a difference in the style from 


the rest of the treatise. I perceive none but that which is natural in a 
transition from polemic or argumentative writing to simple narrative. 


Cuap. I. THE PATRIPASSIANS. iy 


merciful to expose the fraud; Callistus was sent to 
Antium with a monthly allowance for his maintenance. 
At Antium (for this release of the Sardinian prisoners 
must have been at the commencement of Victor’s 
episcopate)! he remained nine or ten years. Zephy- 
rinus recalled him from his obscure retreat ; and placed 
him over the cemetery.2_ By degrees the Pope entirely 
surrendered himself to the guidance of Callistus. 

The first act of Callistus on his advancement to the 
bishopric was the excommunication of Sabellius, an 
act cordially approved by Hippolytus, and ascribed to 
the fear of himself. Callistus formed a new scheme, 
by which he hoped to elude the charge on one side of 
Patripassianism, on the other of Ditheism. Hippoly- 
tus denounces his heresy without scruple or reserve.? 


The suggestion that it is a Novatian interpolation is desperate and prepos- 
terous. Novatian was not heard of till thirty years after, his followers, of 
course, later. What possible motive could they have for blackening the 
memory cf Zephyrinus and Callistus? Novatian was no enemy of the 
Bishop of Rome; had no design to invalidate his powers. He was the 
enemy of Cornelius, his successful rival for the see; he aspired himself to 
be bishop — was, in fact, anti-Pope. The great point on which Novatian 
made his stand had, indeed, been mooted, but did not become a cause of 
fatal division till after the persecution of Decius, the treatment of the Lapsi 
—those who in the persecution had denied the faith. 

Hippolytus, it is true, in the poetic legend of Prudentius (who borrows 
the circumstances of his martyrdom from the destiny of his namesake in 
the tragedy of Euripides), is charged with holding the tenets of Novatus, 
which he recanted, and in his death-agony became a good Catholic. But 
the author of the Refutation of all Heresies can hardly have been involved 
in the schism of Novatian, who did not appear till so many years after 
the death of Callistus. Novatian, with such a partisan, would not have 
sought out three obscure bishops for his ordination. I cannot but think 
the Spanish legendary poet of the fourth century utterly without historical 
authority, — possibly he confounded different Hippolyti. 

1 The release of the prisoners took place probably in the tenth year of 
Commodus, the year of Victor’s accession, A.D. 190. 

2 We are naturally reminded of the cemetery called of Callistus. Arin- 
ghi supposes this cemetery older than the time of Callistus. 

8 Callistianism differed but slightly from Noetism. God and his divine 


78 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I, 


Christian doctrine, the profound mystery of the 
Saviour’s Godhead, was not the only subject of col- 
lision between the adverse parties in the ‘Church of 
Rome. The difficult reconciliation of Christian ten- 
derness and Christian holiness could hardly fail to 
produce a milder and more austere party throughout 
Christendom. The first young influences of Mona- 
chism, the perfection claimed by celibacy over the less 
ostentatious virtue of domestic purity, the notion of 
the heroism of self-mortification, led to inevitable dif- 
ferences. Montanism, with its fanatic rigor, had 
wrought up this strife to a great height. The more 
Controversy severe, who did not embrace the Montanist 
morals. tenets, would not be surpassed by heretics in 
self-abnegation. The lenity to be shown to penitents, 
the condescension to the weaknesses of flesh and blood, 
raised perpetual disputes. Callistus throughout, un- 
like those whose early lives demand indulgence, who 
are usually the most severe, was himself indulgent to 
others; and this was the dominant tone at the time in 
the Roman Church. The author of the Refutation, 
though uninfected by Montanist tenets, inveighs against 
the leniency of Callistus, as asserting that even a 
bishop, guilty of a deadly sin, was not to be deposed. 
The nature of this, according to Hippolytus, deadly 
sin, which Callistus treated with such offensive ten- 
derness, appears from the next sentence:! it related 


Word were one; together they were the Spirit, the one Spiritual Being. 
This Spirit took flesh of the Virgin; so the Father was in the Son, but he 
suffered not as the Son, but with the Son. 

1 Οὗτος ἐδογμώτισεν ὅπως εἰ ἐπίσκοπος ἁμάρτοι τι, εἰ καὶ πρὸς ϑάνατον, 
μὴ δεῖν κατατίϑεσϑαι. ᾿Ἐπὶ τούτου ἤρξαντο ἐπίσκοποι καὶ πρεσβύτεροι καὶ 
διάκονοι δίγαμοι καὶ τρίγαμοι καϑίστασϑαι εἰς κλήρους. ἘΠ δὲ καὶ τις ἐν 
κλήρῳ ὧν γαμοίη, μένειν τον τοιοῦτον ἐν τῷ κλήρῳ ὡς μὴ ἡμαρτήῆκοτα. ix. 


12. p. 290. 


CuHar. I. CONTROVERSY ON CHRISTIAN MORALS. 79 


to that grave question which had begun to absorb 
the Christian mind—the marriage of the clergy. 
That usage, which has always prevailed, and_ still 
prevails, in the Greek Church, as yet seems to have 
satisfied the more rigorous at Rome. Those who were 
already married when ordained, retained their wives. 
But a second marriage, or marriage after ordination, 
was revolting to the incipient monkery of the Church. 
But Callistus, according to his implacable adversary, 
went further, he admitted men who had been twice, 
even thrice married, to holy orders; he allowed those 
already in orders to marry. His more indulgent party 
appealed to the evangelical argument,! ‘ Who art 
thou that judgest another man’s servant?’ They 
alleged the parables of the tares and wheat, the clean 
and unclean beasts in the ark. This the more austere 
denounced as criminal flattery of the passions of the 
multitude; as the sanction of voluptuousness pro- 
scribed by Christ, with the base design of courting 
popularity, and swelling the ranks of their faction. 
There is a heavier charge behind. The widows, if 
they could not contain, were not only allowed to 
marry, but to take a slave or freedman, below their 
own rank, who could not be their legal husband.? 
Hence abortions, and child murders, to conceal these 
disgraceful connections. Callistus, therefore, is sanc- 
tioning adultery and murder. But even this is not the 
height of his offence, he had dared to administer a 
second baptism. So already had ecclesiastical offences 
become worse in the estimation of vehement religious 


1R. H. p. 290. 

2 The widows, who had taken on themselves the office of deaconesses, 
and who, though not bound by vow, were under a kind of virtual en- 
gagement against second marriage. 


80 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


partisans than moral enormities. Here, at least, it is 
fair to mistrust the angry adversary. But this con- 
flict between a more indulgent and a more austere 
party in Rome, and some declaration of the Pope 
Zephyrinus, probably, rather than Callistus, — but 
Zephyrinus acting under the influence of Callistus — 
on the connection between the sexes, had already ex- 
cited the indignation of Tertullian in Africa, now still 
more hardened by his Montanist tenets. ‘* The Bishop 
of Bishops had promulgated an edict, that he would 
remit to penitents even the sins of adultery and for- 
nication. This license to lust is issued in the strong- 
hold of all wicked and shameless lusts.”’! 

Persecution restored that peace to the Roman 
Church, which had been so much disturbed through- 
out her uninvaded prosperity, during the tolerant rule 
of Alexander Severus. In the sudden outburst of 
hostility, during the short reign of the brutal Thracian 
Maximin, Pontianus, who had followed Urban I., the 
A.D. 235. successor of Callistus, and with him a pres- 
byter, Hippolytus, suffered sentence of deportation to 
the usual place of exile—Sardinia. There Pontianus 
is said (nor is there much reason to doubt the tradi- 
tion) to have endured martyrdom. Hippolytus,? ac- 
cording to the poetic legend in Prudentius of two 
centuries later, suffered in the suburbs of Rome.? 


1 De Pudicitia.— Did the title Episcopus Episcoporum, which I think 
cannot but mean Rome, arise from his superiority to the suburbicarian 
bishops? See, however, on this title the note of Baluzius on the vii. Con- 
cil. Carthag. — or in Routh, ii. 153. 

2 Compare Bunsen. The title of Presbyter assigned to Hippolytus, if, as 
is most probable, the same with the author of the Refutation and other 
works, even if he were Bishop of Portus, raises no difficulty. These 
bishops were members of the Roman Presbytery. 

8 At this time, more likely than fifteen years afterwards, in the Decian 
persecution. Legend respects not dates. 


Crap. I. DECIAN PERSECUTION. 81 


The Decian persecution, about thirty years after the 
death of Callistus, was the birth epoch of pcian perse- 
Latin Christianity ; Cyprian its true parent. “ποι. 
Rome, the recognized metropolis of the West, Car- 
thage, the metropolis of the African churches, are 
in constant and regular intercourse.! There is first a 
Punic league, afterwards at least a threatened Punic 
war. In the persecution the churches are brought ito 
close alliance by common sympathies, common perils, 
common sufferings, singularly enough by common 
schisms; slowly, but no doubt at length, by their 
common language. The same Imperial edict endan- 
gers the life of the Roman and of the Carthaginian 
Bishop; malcontents from Rome find their way to 
Carthage, from Carthage to Rome. The same man, 
Novatus, stirs up rebellion against episcopal authority 
in Rome and in Carthage; the letters of the churches 
to each other are promulgated in Latin, though at a 
period somewhat later those from the African churches 
sent into the East are distinguished from those which 
came from Rome, as written in the Roman tongue.? 
So too in Rome and in Carthage (in Carthage in the 
most mature and perfect form, from the master mind 
of Cyprian) appear the Roman strength and the 
Roman respect for law, the imperious assertion of 
hierarchical despotism. In the community there is 
trembling deference for hierarchical authority, though 
at first with a bold but short resistance. There 
is an anti-Bishop in Rome and in Carthage. But 


1 The intercourse between Carthage and Rome, on account of the corn 
trade alone, was probably more regular and rapid than in any other part 
of the empire—mutatis mutandis—like that between Marseilles and 
Algeria. 

2 EKuseb. H. E. See above, p. 58, note. 


VOL. 1. 6 


82 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


in both Churches discipline becomes of equal im- 
portance with doctrine; the unity of the Church is 
made to depend on obedience to its outward polity ; 
rebellion to episcopal authority becomes as great a 
crime as erroneous opinion; schism as hateful as 
heresy. 

Fabianus, under Decius, is the first martyr Bishop 
Fabianus of of Rome, whose death rests on certain testi- 
->-249. mony. The papal chair remained vacant 
for a short time; either the Christians dared not choose, 
cyprianof ΟΥ no one dared to assume the perilous rank. 
Carthage: Cyprian of Carthage on the same occasion, 
not from timidity, but from prudent and parental re- 

gard for his flock, retired into a safe retreat. There 
were already divisions in the Church of Carthage. 
Novatus. | Novatus, a turbulent presbyter, with a 
others,? had been jealous of the elevation of Cyprian. 
Novatus, whose character is darkly drawn by Cyprian, 
had presumed to interfere with the bishop’s prerogative 
(a crime hardly less heinous than peculation and licen- 
tiousness) and himself ordained a deacon, Felicissimus. 
This hostile party would no doubt heap contempt on 
the base flight of Cyprian ; while they, less in danger, 
seemed to have remained to brave the persecutor. 
The party took upon themselves the episcopal func- 
tions.2 On their own authority, too, the faction of 
Novatus determined, in the more lenient way, the 
great question, the reception of the fallen, those who 


1 Perhaps that of Pontianus may be above suspicion. (See above.) 

2Tt is doubtful whether Novatus was one of these five. 

8 Cyprian, from his retreat, sent two bishops to collect and administer 
the alms, probably of great amount, in Carthage. Walch conjectures, with 
much probability, that Felicissimus may have resented this intrusion on his 
province as Deacon. 


Crap. I. NOVATUS AND NOVATIAN. 83 


had denied the faith and offered sacrifice, and those 
who, with more pardonable weakness, had bought cer- 
tificates of submission from the venal officers.1 Cyp- 
rian in vain remonstrated from his retreat: he too 
had somewhat departed from his old sternness, when 
he had shut the doors of the Church against the rene- 
gades. He was not now for inflexible and peremptory 
rejection of those weak brethren, for whom he may have 
learned some sympathy ; he insisted only on their less 
hasty, more formal reception, after penance, confession, 
imposition of hands by the bishop. Each case was to 
be separately considered before an assembly of the 
bishops, presbyters, deacons, the faithful who had stood,? 
and the laity ; so popular still was Cyprian’s view of 
episcopal authority. Cornelius, in Rome, comelius 

5 Bishop of 
had been elected bishop on the return of Rome. 
peace. ‘The same question distracted his Church, but 
with more disastrous results. The same Novatus was 
now in Rome: true only to his own restlessness, he 
here embraced the severer party, at the head of which 
stood a leader, by some strange coincidence, almost of 
the same name with his own, Novatian.? This Novatian. 
man had been a Stoic philosopher. His hard nature, 
in the agony of wrestling after truth, before he had 
found peace in Christianity, broke down both body and 
mind. His enemies afterwards declared that he had 


1 They were called Libellatici. Compare Mosheim de Reb. Christian. 
ante Constant. M., pp. 482, 489. 

2 Throughout this is his language — Viderint laici, hoc quomodo curent. 
Ep. liii., also xi. xxix. xxxi. Compare Concil. Carthag. iii., where it is 
among the objections that a fallen had been received sine petitu et con- 
scientia plebis. Mansi sub ann. 252, or Routh, vol. ii. p. 74. 

8 The Greek writers all called Novatian, Novatus. We are on historical 
ground, or what a myth might be made out of these two Jnnovators !— 
Novatus and Novatian. 


84 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


been possessed ; the demon was not completely exor- 
cised. He had only received what was called Clinic 
baptism (an imperfect rite) on what was supposed his 
death-bed. The Stoic remained within the Christian ; 
he became a rigid ascetic. Novatian sternly declared 
that no mercy but that of God (from that he did not 
exclude the fallen) could absolve from the inexpiable 
sin of apostacy : the Church, which received such un- 
absolvable sinners into its bosom, was unclean, and 
ceased to be the Church. Novatian might have con- 
tented himself, like the Thraseas of old, with protest- 
ing against the abuse of episcopal despotism, no less 
abuse because it erred on the side of leniency. When 
charged with ambitious designs on the Bishopric of 
Rome, of having been the rival, and therefore having 
become the enemy, of Cornelius, he solemnly declared 
τ᾽ αὖ he preferred the solitary virtue and dignity of the 
ascetic ; it was only by compulsion that he took upon 
himself the function of an Antipope. Cyprian attrib- 
utes the schism to the malignant influence of Novatus: 
—‘‘In proportion as Rome is greater than Carthage, 
so was the sin of Novatus in Rome more heinous than 
that in Carthage. In Carthage he had ordained a dea- 
con, in Rome he had made a bishop.” 1 Novatian was 
publicly but hastily and irregularly consecrated, as 
Bishop of Rome, by three bishops, it is said, of obscure 
towns in Italy. Novatian was in doctrine rigidly or- 
thodox ; but in Cyprian’s view (who makes common 
cause with the Bishop of Rome against the common 
enemy) what avails orthodoxy of doctrine in one out 

1Plané quoniam pro magnitudine sua debeat Carthaginem Roma pre- 
cedere, illic majora et graviora commisit. Qui istic adversus ecclesiam di- 


aconum fecerat illic episcopum fecit. Epist. xlix. The preéminence of the 
Bishop of Rome arises out of the preéminent greatness of Rome. 


Cuap. I. NOVATUS AND NOVATIAN. 85 


of the Church?! He is selftexcluded from the pale 
of salvation. Cyprian had grounds, if not for his ab- 
horrence, for his fears of Novatianism. It aspired 
itself to be the Church, to set up rival bishops through- 
out Christendom ; the test of that Church was this un- 
compromising, inflexible severity. Even in Carthage 
arose another bishop, Fortunatus, who asserted himself 
to have been consecrated by twenty-three Numidian 
bishops. Cyprian, not without bitterness, while he ad- 
mits that Cornelius had rejected his rebellious Deacon 
Felicissimus from communion, complains that he had 
been weakly shaken, and induced to waver, by the 
false representations of the partisans of Fortunatus.? 
This transient difference was soon lost in Cyprian’s 
generous admiration for the intrepidity of Cornelius, 
in whose glorious Confession the whole Church of 
Rome, even the fallen, who had been admitted as peni- 
tents, now nobly joined. Cornelius was banished, it 
is said, by the Emperor Gallus, to Civitaé Vecchia ; 
he was followed by vast numbers of believers, who 
shared his exile, and his danger. The Church returned 
from banishment, but under a new bishop, Lucius ; 
Cornelius had died, the words of Cyprian hardly assert 
by a violent death. The Novatians alone, during this 

1 Quod vero ad Novatiani personam pertinet, pater carissime, desideristi 
tibi scribi quam heresin introduxisset, scias nos primo in loco non curiosos 
esse debere quid ille doceat, cum foris doceat. Quisquis ille est, et qualis- 
cunque est, Christianus non est, qui in Christi ecclesia non est. Ad Anton. 
Epist. 11. 

2 Read the whole ‘remarkable letter, lv. ad Cornelium—the strongest 
revelation of the views, reasonings, passions, fears, hatreds of Cyprian. I 
cannot consent, with a late writer, to the abandonment of all these docu- 
ments as spurious. Forgery would not have left the argument so doubtful, 
or rather so decisive against the object imputed to the forgers. 

8 Epist. ad Lucium P. R. reversum ab exilio—lviii. See, however, Epist. 


Ixviii. — He is described as martyrio quoque dignatione Domini honoratus. 
Compare Routh’s note, ii. 132. 


80 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book I. 


new trial of the faith, stood aloof in sullen hostility. 
a.v. 258. They were too obscure, Cyprian suggests, to 
provoke the jealousy of the rulers. But Cyprian mis- 
calculated that strength and vitality of Novatianism. 
It spread throughout Christendom: even in the East, 
Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, was hardly restrained from 
joming the party. Dionysius of Alexandria treated 
their advances with greater wisdom; he earnestly 
urged Novatian, now that Cornelius was dead and the 
question laid almost at rest by the cessation of perse- 
cution, to return into the bosom of the Church. On 
Novatian’s stubborn refusal, he condemned in strong 
terms his harsh Christianity, as depriving the Saviour 
of his sacred attribute of mercy. But Novatianism 
endured for above two centuries; it had its bishops in 
Constantinople, Nicea, Nicomedia, Citizeus in Phrygia, 
in Cyzicum and Bithynia; even in Alexandria, in 
Italy, in Gaul, in Spain. It had its saints, its hermits, 
its monks. St. Ambrose in Italy, Pacianus, Bishop 
of Barcelona, and towards the end of the fourth cen- 
tury Leo the Great, thought it necessary to condemn 
or to refute the doctrines of Novatian. The two 
Byzantine ecclesiastical historians, “Socrates and_ his 
follower Sozomen, have been accused of leaning to 
Novatianism.! 

Novatianism, like all unsuccessful opposition, added 
Cyprian’s strength to its triumphant adversary. It was 
unity of the ὃ Ξ, 5 ee 
Church. not so much by its rigor, as by its collision 
with the Hierarchical system, that it lost its hold on the 
Christian mind. It declared that there were sins be- 


1Compare Walch Ketzer-Geschichte. Walch has collected every pas- 
sage relating to Novatianism with his usual industry, accuracy and fair- 
ness, ii. pp. 185, 288. 


Cuap. I. CYPRIAN’S UNITY. 87 


yond the ansolving power of the clergy. By setting 
up rival bishops in Rome, Carthage, and other cities, 
it only evoked more commandingly the growing theory 
of Christian unity, and caused it to be asserted in a 
still more rigid and exclusive form. Within the pale 
of the Church, under the lawful Bishop, were Christ 
and salvation ; without it, the realm of the Devil, the 
world of perdition. The faith of the heretic and schis- 
matic was no faith, his holiness no holiness, his martyr- 
dom no martyrdom.! Latin Christianity, in the mind 
of Cyprian, if not its founder, its chief hierophant, had 
soared to the ideal height of this unity. This Utopia 
of Cyprian placed St. Peter at the head of the College 
of coequal Apostles, from whom the Bishops inherited 
coequal dignity. The succession of the Bishop of 
Rome from St. Peter was now, near 200 years after 
his death, an accredited tradition. Nor, so long as 
Carthage and Rome were in amity and alliance, did 
Cyprian scruple to admit (as Carthage could not but 
own her inferiority to Imperial Rome) a kind of pri- 
macy, of dignity at least, in the Metropolitan Bishop.? 


1 The second Council of Carthage touches on this absolving power of the 
priesthood — “ Quando permiserit ipse, qui legem dedit ut ligati in terris 
etiam in ceelis ligati essent, solvi autem possent illa que hic prius in ecclesia 
solverentur.’”’ The decree of this Council anticipates another instant per- 
secution, and urges, with great force and beauty, the necessity of strength- 
ening all disciples against the coming trial—quos excitamus et hortamur 
ad preelium non inermes et nudos relinquamus, sed protectione corporis et 
sanguinis Christi muniamus. Mansi, sub ann. 252, or Routh, Rel. Sacre, 
v. 11. p. 70. 

2Hoe erant utique et ceteri Apostoli, quod fuit Petrus, pari consortio 
priediti et honoris et potestatis: sed exordium ab unitate proficiscitur, et 
primatus Petro datur, ut una Christi ecclesia et cathedra una monstretur. 
De unit. Eccles. There is little doubt that this famous passage is an inter- 
polation; it is not found in the best manuscripts. The whole passage with- 
out these words seems to me to bear out the guarded assertion of the text. 


88 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


The Punic league suddenly gives place to a Punic 
Dispute War. Α new controversy has sprung up in 
petween | the interval between the Decian and Vale- 
Carthage. yian_ persecutions, on the rebaptism of here- 
tics. Africa, the East, Alexandria with less decision, 
declared the baptism by heretics an idle ceremony, and 
even an impious mimicry of that holy rite, which could 
only be valid from the consecrated hands of the lawful 
a.v.255. clergy. Lucius of Rome had ruled but a 
few months: he was succeeded by Stephen. This 
pope adopted a milder rule. Every baptism in the 
name of Christ admitted to Christian privileges. He 
enforced this rule, according to his adversaries (his 
own letters are lost), with imperious dictation. At 
length he broke off communion with all the churches 
of the East and of Africa, which adhered to the more 
rigorous practice! But the Eastern hatred of heresy 
conspired with the hierarchical spirit of Africa, which 
could endure no intrusion on the prerogatives of the 
clergy. Cyprian confronts Stephen not only as an 
equal, but, strong in the concurrence of the East and 
of Alexandria, as his superior. ‘The primacy of Peter 
has lost its authority. He condemns the perverseness, 
obstinacy, contumacy of Stephen. He promulgates, 
in Latin, a letter of Firmilian, Bishop of the Cappado- 
cian Ceesarea, still more unmeasured in its censures. 
Firmilian denounces the audacity, the insolence of 
Stephen ; scoffs at his boasted descent from St. Peter ; 
declares that, by his sin, he has excommunicated him- 
self: he is the schismatic, the apostate from the unity 


1 He denounced Cyprian, according to Firmilian, as a false Christ, a false 
apostle, a deceitful workman. Firm. Epist. apud Cyprian. Opera. 


Cuar. I. SEPARATE UNITY OF LATIN CHRISTENDOM. 89 


of the Church! A solemn Council of eighty-seven 
bishops, assembled at Carthage under Cyprian, asserted 
the independent judgment of the African Churches, 
repudiated the assumption of the title, Bishop of 
Bishops, or the arbitrary dictation of one bishop to 
Christendom. 

Yet even during this internal feud, Latin Chris- 
tendom was gathering into a separate unity. The 
Churches of Gaul and Spain appeal at once to Rome 
and to Carthage; Arles, indeed, in southern Gaul, 
may still have been Greek. But the high character of 
Cyprian, and the flourishing state of the African 
Churches, combined with their Latinity to endow them 
with this concurrent primacy in the West. Martia- 
nus, Bishop of Arles, had embraced Novatianism in all 
its rigor. The oppressed anti-Novatian party sent to 
Carthage as well as to Rome, to entreat their aid. 
Cyprian appears to acknowledge the superior right in 
the Bishop of Rome to appoint a substitute for the re- 
bellious Novatianist. He urges Pope Stephen, by the 
memory of his martyred predecessors Cornelius and 
Lucius, not to shrink from this act of necessary rigor.” 
This, however, was but a letter from one bishop to 
another, from Cyprian of Carthage to Stephen of 
Rome.’ The answer to the Bishops of Spain is the 
formal act of a synod of African Bishops, assembled 


1Excidisti enim temet ipsum; noli te fallere. Siquidem ille est vere 
schismaticus, qui se a communione Ecclesiastice unitatis apostatam fecerit. 
Firm. ad Cyprian. I see no ground to question, with some Roman Catho- 
lic writers, the authenticity of this letter. No doubt it is a translation from 
the Greek; if by Cyprian himself, it accounts for the sameness of style. A 
Donatist forgery would have been in a different tone, and directed against 
different persons. Compare Walch Ketzer-Geschichte, ii. 323, οὐ seqq. 
Routh, note ii. p. 151. i 

2a.p. 256. Apud Mansi, sub ann. or Routh, Rel. Sac. iii. p. 91. 

8 Cypriani Epist. bxvii. 


00 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book I. 


under the presidency of the Bishop of Carthage. It 
is a Latin religious state paper, addressed by one part 
of Latin Christendom to the rest.1 The Spanish 
Bishops, Basilides and Martialis, of Leon and Astorga, 
had, during the Decian persecution, denied the faith, 
offered sacrifice, according to the language of the day, 
returned to wallow in the mire of paganism. Yet they 
had dared to resume, not merely their privileges as 
Christians, but the holy office of bishops. Whatever 
leniency might be shown to humbler penitents, that the 
immaculate priesthood should not be irrevocably for- 
feited by such defilement, revolted not only the more 
severe, but the general sentiment. Two other bishops, 
Felix and Sabinus, were consecrated in their place. 
Basilides found his way to Rome, and imposed by his 
arts on the unsuspecting Stephen, who commanded his 
reinstatement in his high office. Appeal was made to 
Carthage against Rome. Cyprian would strengthen 
his own authority by that of a synod. At the head of 
his thirty-five bishops, Cyprian approves the acts of the 
Presbyters and people of Leon and Astorga in reject- 
ing such unworthy bishops ; treats with a kind of re- 
spectful compassion the weakness of Stephen of Rome, 
who had been so easily abused ; and exhorts the Span- 
iards to adhere to their rightful prelates, Felix and 
Sabinus.? 

The persecution of Valerian joined the Bishops 
of Rome and of Carthage, Sixtus, the successor of 
Stephen, and the famous Cyprian, in the same glori- 
ous martyrdom.?® 

1The Decrees of the Council of Carthage are the earliest Latin public 
documents. 


2 Cyprian. Epist. Lxvii. 
3 On the martyrdom of Cyprian, Hist. of Christ. ii. 251. 


Cuap. I. MARCELLINUS AND MARCELLUS. 91 


Dionysius, a Calabrian, is again a Greek Bishop of 
Rome, mingling with something of congenial a.». 259. 
zeal, and in the Greek language, in the controversies 
of Greek Alexandria, and condemning the errors of 
the Bishop of the same name, who had the evil report 
of having been the predecessor of Arius in doctrine. 
Dionysius, of Alexandria, however, a prelate of great 
virtue, it should seem, was but incautiously betrayed 
into these doubtful expressions ; at all events, he repu- 
diated the conclusions drawn from his words. With 
all the more candid and charitable, he soon resumed his 
fame for orthodoxy. When the Emperor Aurelian! 
transferred the ecclesiastical judgment over α.ν. 270. 
Paul of Samosata, a rebel against the Empire as against 
the Church, from the Bishops of Syria to those of 
Rome and Italy, a subtle Greek heresy, maintained by 
Syrian Greeks, could not have been adjudicated but by 
Greeks or by Latins perfect masters of Greek. Dio- 
nysius, as Bishop of Rome, passed sentence in this 
important controversy. 

Towards the close of this third century, throughout 
the persecution of Diocletian, darkness settles again 
over the Bishops of Rome. The apostacy of yfarceninus, 
Marcellinus is but a late and discarded fable, Ὁ. 7% 
adopted as favoring the Papal supremacy. Legend 
assembles three hundred Bishops at Sinuessa, three 
hundred Bishops peaceably debating at such times in a 
small Neapolitan town. This synod refused to take 
cognizance of the crime of St. Peter’s successor. Mar- 
cellinus was forced to degrade himself. 

The legend, that his successor, Marcellus, was re- 


1 Compare, on the act of Aurelianus, Hist. of Christ. ii. p. 257. 


02 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


duced to the servile office of a groom, rests ON yarcettus, 
no better authority. Had it any claim to“? ** 
truth, the successors of Marcellus had full and ample 
revenge, when kings and emperors submitted to the 
same menial service, and held the stirrup for the Popes 
to mount their horses. 


Cuap II. CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE. 93 


CHAPTER II. 
ROME AFTER THE CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE. 


Tuus, down to the conversion of Constantine, the 
biography of the Roman Bishops, and_ the Conversion 

2 2 of Constan- 
history of the Roman Episcopate, are one ; tine. 
the acts and peculiar character of the Pontiffs, the in- 
fluence and fortunes of the See, excepting in the doubt- 
ful and occasional gleams of light which have brought 
out Victor, Zephyrinus, Callistus, Cornelius, Stephen, 
into more distinct personality, are involved in a dim 
and vague twilight. On the establishment of Chris- 
tianity, as the religion if not of the Empire, of the 
Emperor, the Bishop of Rome rises at once to the rank 
of a great accredited functionary ; the Bishops gradu- 
ally, though still slowly, assume the life of individual 
character. The Bishop is the first Christian in the first 
city of the world, and that city is legally Christian. 
The Supreme Pontificate of heathenism might still 
linger from ancient usage among the numerous titles 
of the Emperor; but so long as Constantine was in 
Rome, the Bishop of Rome, the head of the Emperor’s 
religion, became in public estimation the equal, in au- 
thority and influence immeasurably the superior, to all 
of sacerdotal rank. The schisms and factions of 
Christianity now become affairs of state. As long as 
Rome is the imperial residence, an appeal to the Em- 
peror is an appeal to the Bishop of Rome. The 


04 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book 1. 


Bishop of Rome sits, by the imperial authority, at the 
head of a synod of Italian prelates, to judge the dis- 
putes with the African Donatists. 

Melchiades held the See of Rome at the time of 
Melchiades, Constantine’s conversion, but soon made 
4p. 32-314, room for Silvester, whose name is more in- 
Silvester. separably connected with that great event. 
Silvester has become a kind of hero of religious fable. 
But it was not so much the genuine mythical spirit 
which unconsciously transmutes history into legend ; 
it was rather deliberate invention, with a specific aim 
and design, which, in direct defiance of history, accel- 
erated the baptism of Constantine, and sanctified a 
porphyry vessel as appropriated to, or connected with, 
Melchiades, that holy use: and at a later period pro- 


Silvester. 


op ee Sle duced the monstrous fable of the Donation.! 
Jan. A 


1This document — the Imperial Edict of Donation —a forgery as clumsy 
as audacious, ought to be inspected by those who would judge of the igno- 
rance which could impose, or the credulity which would receive it, as the 
title-deed to enormous rights and possessions. (Muratori ascribes the forg- 
ery of the act to the period between 755 and 766.)—Palatium nostrum 
.... et urbem Romam, et totius Italie, et occidentalium regionum provin- 
cias, loca, civitates . . . . pradicto beatissimo patri nostro Silvestro Cathol- 
ico Pape tradentes et cedentes hujus et successoribus, ejus Pontificatus po- 
testate . . . . divino nostro hoc pragmatico decreto administrari diffinimus, 
juri sancte Romanorum ecclesiz subjicienda et in eo permansura exhibe- 
mus. The Donation may be found, prefixed to Laurentius Valla’s famous 
refutation. Read, too, the more guarded and reluctant surrender of Nicho- 
las of Cusa, the feeble murmur of defence from Antoninus, archbishop of 
Florence, — apud Brown, Fasciculus, pp. 124, 161. Before the Reformation, 
the Donation had fallen the first victim of awakening religious inquiry. 
Dante, while he denounces, does not venture to question the truth of Con- 
stantine’s gift. By the time of Ariosto it had become the object of unre- 
buked satire, even in Italy. Astolpho finds it among the chimeras of 
earth in the moon, 


“ or puzza forte. 
Questo era il don (se pero dir lice) 
Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fece.”’ 
Orl, Fur. xxxiv. 80. 


Cuap. IL. OBSCURITY OF ROMAN BISHOPS. 95 


But that with which Constantine actually did invest 
the Church, the right of holding landed grant of con- 
property, and receiving it by bequest, was ΤῊΝ 
far more valuable to the Christian Hierarchy, and not 
least to the Bishop of Rome, than a premature and 
prodigal endowment, which would at once have plunged 
them in civil affairs; and, before they had attained 
their strength, made them objects of jealousy or of 
rapacity to the temporal Sovereign. Had it been 
possible, a precipitate seizure, or a hasty acceptance 
of large territorial possessions would have been fatal to 
the dominion of the Church. It was the slow and 
imperceptible accumulation of wealth, the unmarked 
ascent to power and sovereignty, which enabled the 
Papacy to endure for centuries. 

The obscurity of the Bishops of Rome was not in 
this alone their strength. The earlier Pontiffs (Cle- 
ment is hardly an exception) were men, who of them- 
selves commanded no great authority, and awoke no 
jealousy. Rome had no Origen, no Athana- goman Bish- 
sius, no Ambrose, no Augustine, no Jerome. °P* °s°¥r 
The power of the Hierarchy was established by other 
master-minds: by the Carthaginian Cyprian, by the 
Italian Ambrose, the Prelate of political weight as 
well as of austere piety, by the eloquent Chrysostora.! 
The names of none of the Popes, down to Leo and 
Gregory the Great, appear among the distinguished 
writers of Christendom.2 This more cautious and 
retired dignity was no less favorable to their earlier 


1 Chrysostom’s book on the Priesthood throughout. 

2 Karly Christianity, it may be observed, cannot be justly estimated from 
its writers. The Greeks were mostly trained in the schools of philosophy 
—the Latin in the schools of rhetoric; and polemic treatises could not but 
form a great part of the earliest Christian literature. 


96 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


power, than to their later claim of infallibility. If 
more stirring and ambitious men, they might have 
betrayed to the civil power the secret of their aspiring 
hopes; if they had been voluminous writers, in the 
more speculative times, before the Christian creed had 
assumed its definite and coherent form, it might have 
been more difficult to assert their unimpeachable ortho- 
doxy. 

The removal of the seat of empire to Constanti- 
Foundation nople consummated the separation of Greek 
tinople. and Latin Christianity; one took the do- 
minion of the East, the other of the West. Greek 
Christianity has now another centre in the new capi- 
tal; and the new capital has entered into those close 
relations with the great cities of the East, which had 
before belonged exclusively to Rome. Alexandria has 
become the granary of Constantinople ; her Christian- 
ity and her commerce, instead of floating along the 
Mediterranean to Italy, pours up the Augean to the 
city on the Bosphorus. The Syrian capitals, Antioch, 
Jerusalem, the cities of Asia Minor and Bithynia, 
Ephesus, Nicea, Nicomedia, own another mistress. 
The tide of Greek trade has ebbed away from the 
West, and found a nearer mart; political and religious 
ambition and adventure crowd to the new Eastern 
Court. That Court becomes the chosen scene of 
Christian controversy ; the Emperor is the proselyte to 
gain whom contending parties employ argument, in- 
fluence, intrigue. 

That which was begun by the foundation of Con- 
Division of | Stantinople, was completed by the partition 
theempire- of the empire between the sons of Constan- 
tine. There are now two Roman worlds, a Greek, 


Cuap. II. APOSTOLICAL ANTIQUITY OF ROME. OT 


and a Latin. In one respect, Rome lost in dignity, 
she was no longer the sole Metropolis of the empire ; 
the East no longer treated her with the deference of a 
subject. On the other hand, she was the uncontested, 
unrivalled head of her own hemisphere; she had no 
rival in those provinces, which yet held her allegiance, 
either as to civil or religious supremacy. The separa- 
tion of the empire was not more complete between the 
sons of Constantine or Theodosius, than between 
Greek and Latin Christianity. 

In Rome itself Latin Christianity had long been in 

the ascendant. Greek had slowly and im- Latin Chris 

tianity that 
perceptibly withdrawn from her services, her of Rome. 
Scriptures, her controversial writings, the spirit of her 
Christianity. It is now in the person of Athanasius, 
a stranger hospitably welcomed, not a member at once 
received into her community. Great part of the three 
years, during which Athanasius resided in Rome, must 
be devoted to learning Latin, before he can obtain his 
full mastery over the mind of the Roman Pontiff, 
perhaps before he can fully initiate the Romans in the 
subtle distinctions of that great controversy.! 

The whole West, Africa, Gaul, in which so soon as 
the religion spread beyond the Greek settle- of the west. 
ments, it found Latin, if not the vernacular, the 
dominant language (the native Celtic had been driven 
back into obscurity), Spain, what remained of Britain, 
formed a religious as well as a civil realm. In her 
Apostolical antiquity, in the dignity therefore of her 
Church, Rome stood as much alone and unapproach- 
able among the young and undistinguished cities of 
the West, as in her civil majesty. After Cyprian, 


1 Gibbon, ο. xxi. p. 360. 
VOL. I. 7 


98 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book I. 


Carthage, until the days of Augustine, had sunk back 
into her secondary rank: Africa had been long rent 
to pieces by the Donatist schisms. Rome, therefore, 
might gather up her strength in quiet, before she 
committed herself in strife with any of her more for- 
midable adversaries; and those adversaries were still 
weakening each other in the turmoils of unending 
controversy ; so as to leave the almost undivided 
Unity of the West an object of admiration and envy 
to the rest of Christendom. 

For throughout the religious and civil wars, which 
Trinitarian almost simultaneously with the conversion of 
controversy: Constantine distracted the Christian world, 
the Bishops of Rome and the West stood aloof in 
unimpassioned equanimity ; they were drawn into the 
Trinitarian controversy, rather than embarked in it by 
their own ardent zeal. So long as Greek Christianity 
predominated in Rome, so long had the Church been 
divided by Greek doctrinal controversy. ‘There the 
earliest disputes about the divinity of the Saviour had 
found ready audience. But Latin Christianity, as it 
grew to predominance in Rome, seemed to shrink from 
these foreign questions, or rather to abandon them for 
others more congenial. The Quarto Deciman contro- 
versy related to the establishment of a common law of 
Christendom, as to the time of keeping her great 
Festival. So in Novatianism, the readmission of apos- 
tates into the outward privileges of the Church, the 
kindred dispute concerning the rebaptism of heretics, 
were constitutional points, which related to the eccle- 
siastical polity. Donatism turned on the legitimate 
succession of the African Bishops. 

The Trinitarian controversy was an Eastern ques- 


Cuap. II. ORTHODOXY OF THE WEST. 99 


tion. It began in Alexandria, invaded the Syrian 
cities, was ready, from its foundation, to disturb the 
churches, and people the streets of Constantinople 
with contending factions. Until taken up by the 
fierce and busy heterodoxy of Constantius when sole 
Emperor, it chiefly agitated the East. The Asiatic 
Nicea was the seat of the Council; all but a very few 
ot the three hundred and twenty Bishops, who formed 
the Council, were from Asiatic or Egyptian sees. 
There were two Presbyters only to represent the 
Bishop of Rome ;! the Bishop by his absence hap- 
pily escaped the dangerous precedent, which might 
have been raised by his appearance in any rank 
inferior to the Presidency. Besides these Presbyters, 
there were not above seven or eight Western Prelates. 
Hosius of Cordova, if, as some accounts state, he 
presided, did so as the favorite of the Emperor; if 
it may be so expressed, as the Court divine.? 

During the second period of the Trinitarian contro- 
versy, when the Arian Emperor of the East, 2nd perioa. 
Constantius, had made it a question which involved 
the whole world in strife; and, though it was not the 
cause of the fratricidal war between the sons of Con- 
stantine, yet no doubt it aggravated the hostility ; 
Rome alone, except for a short time of compulsory 

1 Τῆς δὲ ye Βασιλευούσης πόλεως ὁ μὲν προέστως διὰ γῆρας ὑστέρει: 
πρεσβύτεροι δὲ αὐτοῦ πάροντες τὴν αὐτοῦ τάξιν ἐπλήρωσαν. The expres- 
sion ‘‘the royal city” is significant. Socrat. H. E.,i. 8. The presbyters’ 
names are reported, ,Vitus and Vincentius. 

3 Hosius is named by writers of the fifth century as the first among the 
bishops at Nicea to sign the decrees. (Gelas. Cyzicen. Act. Concil. sub 
ann. 325.) Theodoret assigns a kind of presidency to Eustathius ot 
Antioch. In all the earlier accounts it is impossible to discern any presi- 
dent, certainly none when the emperor is present. Hosius, in later times, 


was taken up as the representative of the Bishop of Rome. Compare 
Shroeck. C. K. y. p. 335. 


100 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


submission, remained faithful to the cause of Athana- 
sius. The great Athanasius himself, a second time an 
exile from the East,! the object of the Eastern Emper- 
or’s inveterate animosity, had found a hospitable recep- 
tion at Rome. There, having acquired the knowledge 
of Latin, he laid the spells of his master-mind on the 
Pope Julius, and received the deferential homage of 
Latin Christianity, which accepted the creed, which its 
narrow and barren vocabulary could hardly express in 
adequate terms. Yet throughout, the adhesion of 
Rome and of the West was a passive acquiescence 
in the dogmatic system, which had been wrought out 
by the profounder theology of the Eastern divines, 
rather than a vigorous and original examination on her 
part of those mysteries. The Latin Church was the 
scholar, as well as the loyal partisan of Athanasius. 
New and unexpected power grew out of this firmness 
in the head of Latin Christianity, when so large a part 
of Eastern Christendom had fallen away into what 
was deemed apostacy. The orthodoxy of the West 
stood out in bold relief at the Council of Sardica.? 


1 On his first exile he had been received by the Emperor Constans at 
Treves. ; 

2 Even those Latin writers (for Latin Christianity could not altogether 
be silent on the controversy) who treated on the Trinity, rather set forth 
or explained to their flocks the orthodox doctrines determined in the East, 
than refuted native heresies, or proposed their own irrefragable judgment. 
Nor were the more important treatises written in the capital, or in the less 
barbarized Latin of Rome, but by Hilary, the Gallic bishop of Poitiers, in 
the rude and harsh Roman dialect of that province; and Hilary had been 
banished to the East, where he had become impregnated with the spirit, to 
his praise be it said, by no means with the acrimony of the strife. At the 
close of the controversy a Latin creed embodied the doctrines of Athana- 
sius and of the anti-Nestorian writers; but even this was not so much a 
work of controversy, as a final summary of Latin .Christianity, as to the 
ultimate result of the whole. It is the creed commonly called that of St. 
Athanasius. 


Cuap. II. COUNCIL OF SARDICA. 101 


At this Council, held under the protection, and 
within the realm of the orthodox Constans, the oc- 
cupation of all the greater sees in the East by Arian 
or semi-Arian prelates, the secession of the Eastern 
minority from the Council, left Latin Christianity, as it 
were, the representative of Christendom. It assumed 
to itself the dignity and authority of a General «4.. 847. 
Council, and it might seem that the suffrage of that 
Council awed the reluctant Constantius, and enforced 
the restoration of Athanasius to his see. By some 
happy fortune, by some policy prescient of future 
advantage, it might be unwillingness to risk his dignity 
at so great a distance from his own city, the trouble or 
expense of long journeys, or more important avocations 
at home, or the uncertainty that he would be allowed 
the place of honor, the Bishop of Rome (Julius I.) 
was absent from Sardica as from Nicea. 4, :ncu of 
Hosius of Cordova again presided in that S#dica. 
assembly. Three Italian bishops appended their sig- 
natures after that of Hosius, as representing the 
Roman Pontiff. Unconsciously the representatives 
of these times prepared the way for the Legates 
of future ages. Western Christendom might seem 
disposed to show its gratitude to Rome for its pure 
and consistent orthodoxy, by acknowledging at Sar- 
dica a certain right of appeal to the Bishop of Rome 
from Illyricum and Macedonia. These provinces 
were still part of the empire of the West, and the 
decree might seem as if the Primacy of Rome was 
to be coextensive with the Western Empire. The 
metropolitan power of Latiu Christianity thus gath- 
ered two large provinces, mostly Greek in race and 
in language, under its jurisdiction. The bishops of 


102 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. ; Boox I 


Illyricum and Macedonia, in seeking a temporary 
protector (no doubt their immediate object) from the 
lawless tyranny of their Eastern and heterodox su- 
periors, foresaw not that they were imposing on them- 
selves a master who would never relax his claim to 
their implicit obedience. 

Liberius, the successor of Julius I., had to endure 
Pope Libe- the fiercer period of conflict with the Arian 
352, May 22. Emperor. Constantius was now sole master 
of the Roman world. From the councils of Arles and 


Councilof of Milan had been extorted by bribes, by 


rles, 


A.D. 355. threats, and by force, the condemnation of 
Couneil of Athanasius. Liberius had commenced his 
lian. o 5 “1. 
ap. 866. pontificate with an act of declared hostility 


to Athanasius. He had summoned the Prelate of 
Alexandria to Rome: he had declared him cut off 
from the communion of the West.! But if, from fear 
of Constantius, he had rejected Athanasius, he soon 
threw off his timidity: he as suddenly changed his 
policy as his opinions. He disclaimed his feeble Leg- 
ate, the Bishop of Capua, who in his name had 
subscribed at Arles the sentence against the great 
Trinitarian. Himself, at length, after suffering men- 
ace, persecution, exile, was reduced so far to com- 
promise his principles as to assent to that condem- 
nation. Yet nothing could show more strongly the 
different place now occupied by the Bishop of Rome, 
in the estimation of Rome and of the world. Libe- 
rius is no martyr, calmly laying down his life for 
Christianity, inflexibly refusing to sacrifice on an 
heathen altar. He is a prelate, rejecting the sum- 
mary commands of an heretical sovereign, treating 


1 Liberii Epistol. apud Hilar. Fragm. vy. 


Cuap. II. PONTIFICATE OF LIBERIUS. 103 


his messages, his blandishments, his presents, with 
lofty disdain. The Arian Emperor of the world 
discerns the importance of attaching the Bishop of 
Rome to his party, in his mortal strife with Athana- 
sius. His chief minister, the Eunuch Eusebius, ap- 
pears in Rome to negotiate the alliance, bears with him 
rich presents, and a letter from the Emperor.’ Libe- 
rius coldly answers that the Church of Rome .v. 356. 

having solemnly declared Athanasius guiltless, he 
could not condemn him. Nothing less than a Coun- 
cil of the Church, from which the Emperor, his oft- 
cers, and all the Arian prelates shall be excluded, can 
reverse the decree. Eusebius threatens, but in vain ; 
he lays down the Emperor’s gifts in the Church of 
St. Peter. Liberius orders the infected offerings to be 
cast out of the sanctuary. He proceeds to utter a 
solemn anathema against all Arian heretics. Thus 
Roman liberty has found a new champion. ,The Bish- 
op stands on what he holds to be the law of the 
Church; he is faithful to the Prelate, whose creed 
has been recognized as exclusive Christian truth by the 
Senate of Christendom. He disfranchises all, even 
the Emperor himself, from the privileges of the Chris- 
tian polity. Constantius, in his wrath, orders the seiz- 
ure of his rebellious subject; but the Bishop of Rome 
is no longer at the head of a feeble community ; he is 
respected, beloved by the whole city. All Rome is in 
commotion in defence of the Christian prelate. The 
city must be surrounded, and even then it is thought 
more prudent to apprehend Liberius by night, and 
to convey him secretly out of the city. He is sent 


1 Athanas. Hist. Arian. δα Monach, p. 764, e¢ 864. Theodoret, H. E. 
ii. c. 15,16. Sozomen, iv. 6. 11. Ammian. Marcell. xv. c. 7. 


104 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book. I 


Liberius at ἴο the Emperor at Milan. He appears be- 
Maen fore Constantius, with the aged .Hosius of 
Cordova, and all the more distinguished orthodox 
prelates of the west, Eusebius of Wereelli Lucifer of 
Cagliari, Hilary of Poitiers. He maintains the same 
lofty tone. Constantius declares that Athanasius has 
been condemned by a Council of the Church; he 
insists on the treason of Athanasius in corresponding 
with the enemies of the Emperor. Liberius is un- 
shaken: “If he were the only friend τὰ Athanasius, 
he would adhere to the righteous cause.” The Bishop 
of Rome is banished to ΠῚ and inhospitable Thrace. 
He scornfully rejects offers of money, made by the 
Emperor for his expenses on the way. ‘“ Let him 
keep it to pay his soldiers.” To the eunuch who 
made the like offer, he spoke with more bitter sarcasm. 
“Do you, who have wasted all the churches of the 
world, presume to offer me alms as a criminal ? 
Away, first become a Christian !”’* 

Two years of exile in that barbarous region, the 
BeMoraibe: dread of worse than exile, perhaps disastrous 
a.v.357. news from Rome, at length broke the spirit 
of Liberius; he consented to sign the semi-Arian 
creed of Sirmium, and to renounce the communion 
of Athanasius.” 

For the Emperor had attempted to strike a still 
mile heavier blow against the rebellious exile. A 
Antipope- —_ rival bishop, as though the See were vacant, 
had usurped the throne. Felix was elected, it was 


1 Athanas. Apolog. Contra Arian. p. 205. Ad Monach. p. 368. Theod- 
oret, ii. c. 16, 17. 

2 The “isa of Felix, according to Baronius (sub ann. 357), was the 
Dalila which robbed the Episcopal Samson (Liberius) of his strength and 
fortitude. 


ὕπαρ. II. THE ANTIPOPE FELIX. 106 


said, by three eunuchs, who presumed to represent the 
people of Rome, and consecrated by three courtly 
prelates, two of them from the East. But the clergy 
of Rome, and the people with still more determinate 
resolution, kept aloof from the empty churches, where 
Bishop Felix, if not himself an Arian, did not scruple 
to communicate with Arians.! The estrangement 
continued through the two years of the exile of Libe- 
rius; the Pastor was without a flock. At the close 
of this period, the Emperor Constantius 4.0. 357. 
visited Rome; the females, those especially of the 
upper rank, (history now speaks as if the whole 
higher orders were Christians,) had most strenuously 
maintained the right of Liberius, and refused all 
allegiance to the intrusive Felix. They endeavored 
to persuade the Senators, Consulars, and Patricians, 
to make a representation to the Emperor; the timid 
nobles devolved the dangerous office on their wives. 
The female deputation, in their richest attire, as be- 
fitting their rank, marched along the admiring streets, 
and stood before the Imperial presence; by their fear- 
1 Theodoret (H. E. ii. 16) and Sozomen (H. E. iv. 15) plainly assert that 
Felix adhered to the creed of Nicea. Socrates (H. E. ii. 37) conderans him 
as infected by the Arian heresy. By Athanasius (ad Monach., p. 861) he 
is called a monster, raised by the malice of Antichrist, worthy of, and fit to 
execute, the worst design of his wicked partisans. This prelate of ques- 
tionable faith, this usurper of the Roman See, has stolen, it is difficult to 
conjecture how, into the Roman Martyrology. It seems clear that he re- 
tired from Rome, and died a few years after in peace. Gregory the Thir- 
teenth, when searching investigations into ecclesiastical history became 
necessary, startled by the perplexing difficulty perhaps of a canonized 
Arian, certainly of an antipope, with the honors of a martyr, ordered a 
regular inquiry into the claims of Felix. (Baron. Ann. sub ann. 357.) 
The case looked desperate for the memory of Felix: he was in danger 
of degradation, when, by a seasonable miracle, his body was discovered 


with an ancient inscription, “‘ Pope and Martyr.’’ Baronius wrote a book 
about it, which was never published. 


100 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book I. 


less pertinacity they obtained a promise for the release 
of Liberius. Even then Constantius was. but imper- 
fectly informed concerning the strength of the factions 
which himself having exasperated to the utmost, he 
now vainly attempted to reconcile. His Edict de- 
clared that the two Bishops should rule with conjoint 
-authority, each over his respective community. Such 
an edict of toleration was premature by nearly four- 
teen centuries or more. In that place, the uncongenial 
atmosphere of which we should hardly have expected 
Christian passions to have penetrated, the Circus of 
Rome, the Edict was publicly read. ‘* What!” ex- 
claimed the scofting spectators, ‘‘ because we have two 
factions here, distinguished by their colors, are we to 
have two factions in the Church?” The whole 
audience broke forth in an overwhelming shout, “* One 
God! one Christ! one Bishop!” 

Liberius returned, in the course of the next year, to 
Liberiusin Rome. His entrance was an ovation; the 
ap. 868, people thronged forth, as of old to meet some 
an triumphant Consul or Cicero on his return 
from exile. The rival bishop, Felix, fled before his 
face ;' but Felix and his party would not altogether 
abandon the coequal dignity assigned him by the de- 
cree of Constantius, and confirmed by the Council of 
Sirmium. He returned; and, at the head of a body 
of faithful ecclesiastics, celebrated divine worship in 
the basilica of Julius, beyond the Tiber. He was ex- 
pelled, patricians and populace uniting against this, one 
of the earliest Antipopes who resisted armed force.? 


1 Hieron. Chron. Mare. et Faust. p. 4. 
2 This curious passage in the Pontifical Annals (apud Muratori iii. sub 
an.) is evidently from the party of Felix ;—it asserts his Catholicity. 


σηάν. Π. THE ANTIPOPE FELIX. 107 


A tradition has survived in the Pontifical Annals; of a 
proscription, a massacre.!_ The streets, the baths, the 
churches ran with blood, —the streets, where the par- 
tisans of rival bishops encountered in arms ; the baths, 
where Arian and Catholic could not wash together 
without mutual contamination; the churches, where 
they could not join in common worship to the same 
Redeemer. Felix himself escaped, and lived some 
years in peace, on an estate near the road to Portus.? 
Liberius, Rome itself, sinks back into obscurity ; the 
Pope mingled not, as far as is known, in the fray, 
which had now involved the West as well as the East, 
Latin as well as Greek Christianity ; he was absent 
from the fatal Council of Rimini,®? which de- 4.». 359. 
luded the world into unsuspected Arianism. 

The Emperor Julian, during his short and eventful 
reign, might seem to have forgotten that there Α.ν. 361-363. 
was such a city as Rome. Paris, Athens, Constanti- 
nople, Antioch, Jerusalem, perhaps Alexandria, might 
seem to be the only Imperial cities worthy of 5,0 
his regard. It was a Greek religion which P™erer 
he aspired to restore ; his philosophy was Greek ; his 
writings Greek ; he taught, ruled, worshipped, perished 
in the East.6 Under his successors (after Jovian), 
Valentinian, and Valens, while Valens af- Fatentiaine: 
flicted the East by his feeble and frantic zeal 24, 366. 


1 Gibbon (who for once does not quote his special authority, neverthe- 
less accepts it), c. xxi. y. iii. p. 385. It is rejected by Bower (v. i. p. 141) 
and by Walch, “ Lives of Popes,” in loc. 

2 He died the year before Liberius, 365. 

8 Hist. of Christ. iii. p. 46. 

4Liberius had already subscribed, during his banishment, the creed of 
Sirmium. Constantius and his semi-Arian or Arian counsellors may have 
been content with that act of submission, which had not been formally re- 
roked. 

δ On Julian, Hist. of Christ. vol. iii. c. vi. 


108 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


for Arianism, Valentinian maintained the repose of the 
West by his rigid and impartial toleration." 

On the death of Liberius, the factions, which had 
smouldered in secret, broke out again with fatal fury. 
The Pontificate of Damasus displays Christianity now 
Be onthe not merely the dominant, it might almost seem 
Liberius. the sole religion of Rome ; and the Roman 
character is working as visibly into Christianity. The 
election to the Christian bishopric arrays the people in 
adverse factions ; the government is appalled ; churches 
become citadels, are obstinately defended, furiously 
stormed ; they are defiled with blood. Men fall in 
murderous warfare before the altar of the Prince of 
Peace. In one sense it might seem the reanimation 
of Rome to new life; ancient Rome is resuming her 
wonted but long-lost liberties. The iron hand of des- 
potism, from the time of the last Triumvirate, or rather 
from the accession of Augustus to the Empire, had 
compressed the unruly populace, which only occasion- 
ally dared to break out, on a change in the Imperial 
dynasty, to oppose, or be the victims of, the Preetorian 
soldiery. Now, however, the Roman populace appears 
quickened by a new principle of freedom ; of freedom, 
if with some of its bold independence, with all its blind 
partisanship, its headstrong and stubborn ferocity. ‘The 
great offices, which still perpetuated in name the an- 
cient Republic, the Senatorship, Queestorship, Consul- 
ate, are quietly transmitted according to the Imperial 
mandates, excite no popular commotion, nor even in- 
terest; for they are honorary titles, which confer 
neither influence, nor authority, nor wealth. Even 
the Prefecture of the city is accepted at the will of the 


1 Compare Hist. of Christ. iii. p. 111. 


Crap. Il. CONTESTS FOR THE BISHOPRIC OF ROME. 109 


Emperor, who rarely condescends to visit Rome. But 
the election to the bishopric is now not merely an affair 
of importance — the affair of paramount importance it 
might seem—in Rome; it is an event in the annals 
of the world. The heathen historian,! on whose notice 
had already been forced the Athanasian controversy, 
Athanasius himself, and the acts and the exile of Libe- 
rius, assigns the same place to the contested promotion 
of Damasus which Livy might to that of one of the 
great consuls, tribunes, or dictators. He interprets, as 
well as relates, the event : ?— ‘* No wonder that for so 
magnificent a prize as the Bishopric of Rome, men 
should contest with the utmost eagerness and obstinacy. 
To be enriched by the lavish donations of the princi- 
pal females of the city ; to ride, splendidly attired, in 
a stately chariot ; to sit at a profuse, luxuriant, more 
than imperial, table — these are the rewards of success- 
ful ambition.” ? The honest historian contrasts this 
pomp and luxury with the abstemiousness, the humility, 
the exemplary gentleness of the provincial prelates. 
Ammianus, ignorant or regardless as to the legitimacy 
of either election, arraigns both Damasus and his rival 
Ursicinus* as equally guilty authors of the tumult. 


11 assume, without hesitation, the heathenism of Ammianus, though, 
with regard to him, as to other writers of the time, there is as much truth 
as sagacity in the observation of Heyne — Est obvia res in lectione scripto- 
rum istius temporis, prudentiorum plerosque nec patrias religiones abjecisse, 
nec novas damnasse, sed in his quoque pro suorum ingeniorum facultate 
probanda probasse. Heynii Prolus. in Wagner’s edit. p. cxxxy. 

2 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvii. 3, sub ann. 367. 

8 Compare —it is amusing and instructive — the Cardinal Baronius writ- 
ing in the splendid Papal court, and the severe Jansenist Tillemont, on this 
passage. 

4 On the side of Ursicinus (Ursinus) is the remarkable document pub- 
lished by Sirmond (Opera, i. p. 127), the petition of Marcellinus and Faus- 
tinus to the Emperor Theodosius, who, in his answer, though they were 


110 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I 


Of the Christian writers (and there are, singularly 
enough, contemporary witnesses, probably eye-witness- 
es, on each side), the one asserts the priority and 
legality of election in favor of Damasus, the other of 
Ursicinus ; the one aggravates, the other extenuates 
the violence and slaughter. But that scenes occurred 
of frightful atrocity is beyond all doubt. So long and 
obstinate was the conflict, that Juventius, the Preefect 
of the city, finding his authority contemned, his forces 


afterwards Luciferians (an unpopular sect), testifies to their character by his 
gracious promises of protection. According to the Preface (is it quite cer- 
tain that the Preface is of the same date?) to this Libellus Precum, Dama- 
sus was supported by the party of Felix; he was the successor of Felix, the 
reputed Arian, Ursicinus of Liberius.** The Presbyters, Deacons, and 
faithful people, who had adhered to Liberius in his exile, met in the Julian 
Basilica, and duly elected Ursicinus; who was consecrated by Paul, bishop 
of Tibur. Damasus was proclaimed by the followers of Felix, in 8. M. 
Lucina. Damasus collected a mob of charioteers and a wild rabble, broke 
into the Julian Basilica, and committed great slaughter. Seven days after, 
having bribed a great body of ecclesiastics and the populace, and seized the 
Lateran Church, he was elected and consecrated bishop. Ursicinus was ex- 
pelled from Rome. Damasus, however, continued his acts of violence. 
Seven Presbyters of the other party were hurried prisoners to the Lateran: 
their faction rose, rescued them, and carried them to the Basilica of Liberius 
(S. Maria Maggiore). Damasus, at the head of a gang of gladiators, char- 
ioteers, and laborers, with axes, swords, and clubs, stormed the church: a 
hundred and sixty of both sexes were barbarously killed; not one on the 
side of Damasus. The party of Ursicinus were obliged to withdraw, vainly 
petitioning for a synod of bishops to examine into the validity of the two 
elections. Ursicinus returned from exile more than once, but Damasus had 
the ladies of Rome in his favor; and the council of Valentinian was not 
inaccessible to bribes. New scenes of blood took place. Ursicinus was 
compelled at length to give up the contest. 

On the other hand Damasus had on his side the great vindicator — suc- 
cess. Rufinus, and Jerome (then at Rome, afterwards the secretary of Da- 
masus) assert, with the same minuteness and particularity, the priority and 
the lawfulness of his election: they treat Ursicinus as a schismatic: but 
they cannot deny, however they may mitigate, the acts of violence and 
bloodshed. 


* Damasus, from other authority, is said to have sworn as Presbyter to own no 
bishop but Liberius, to have accompanied him in exile, but speedily deserted him, 
returned to Rome, and at last submitted to Felix. 


- 


Cuap. II. DAMASUS AND URSICINUS. 11: 


unequal to keep the peace, retired into the neighbor- 
hood of Rome. Churches were garrisoned, churches 
besieged, churches stormed and deluged with blood. 
In one day, relates Ammianus, above one hundred and 
thirty dead bodies were counted in the basilica of Sisin- 
nius. The triumph of Damasus cannot relieve his 
memory from the sanction, the excitement of, hardly 
from active participation in, these deeds of blood.? 
Nor did the contention cease with the first discomfiture 
and banishment of Ursicinus: he was more than once 
recalled, exiled, again set up as rival bishop, and re- 
exiled. Another frightful massacre took place in the 
church of St. Agnes. The Emperor was forced to 
have recourse to the character and firmness of the fa- 
mous heathen Pretextatus, as successor to Juventius 
in the government of Rome, in order to put down with 
impartial severity these disastrous tumults. Some years 
elapsed before Damasus was in undisputed possession 
of his see. 

The strife between Damasus and Ursicinus was a 
prolongation or rival of that between Liberius pamasus 
and Felix, and so may have remotely grown °° 
out of the doctrinal conflict of Arianism and Trinita- 
rianism.2, No doubt too it was a conflict of personal 
ambition, for the high prize of the Roman Episcopate. 
But there was another powerful element of discord 
among the Christians of Rome. The. heathen historian 


1 Baronius ingeniously discovered a certain Maximus, a man of notorious 
cruelty, who afterwards held a high office, and might, perhaps, have been 
accessory to the late scenes of tumult; and so quietly exculpates Damasus, 
by laying all the carnage upon Maximus, who was not in authority, possi- 
bly not in Rome at the commencement of the strife. 

2Jerome, Epist. xv. t. i. p. 39, asserts the orthodoxy of Damasus, the 
Arianisin of Ursicinus: but Jerome is hardly conclusive authority against 
the enemy of Damasus. 


17 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


saw and described the outward aspect of things, the 
tumults which disturbed the peace of the city, the con- 
flagrations, the massacres, the assaulted and defended 
churches, the two masses of believers striving in arms 
for the mastery. So too he saw the more notorious 
habits, the public demeanor of the bishops and of the 
clergy, their pomp, wealth, ceremony. The letters of 
Jerome, while they confirm the statements of Ammia- 
nus, reveal the internal state, the more secret workings, 
in this new condition of society. Athanasius had not 
merely brought with him into the West the more spec- 
ulative controversies which distracted Greek Christian- 
ity, he had also introduced the principles and spirit of 
Monasticiom l2Stern Monasticism: and this too had been 
in Rome. embraced with all the strength and intensity 
of the Roman character. That which during the 
whole of the Roman history had given a majesty, a 
commanding grandeur to the virtues and to the vices 
of the Romans, to their patrician pride and plebeian 
liberty, to their frugality and rapacity, to their courage, 
discipline, and respect for order; to their prodigality, 
luxury, sensuality; to their despotism and their ser- 
vility ; now seemed to survive in the force and devo- 
tion with which they threw themselves into Christian- 
ity, and into Christianity in its most extreme, if it may 
be so said, excessive form. On the one hand the 
Bishop and the clergy are already aspirimg to a sacer- 
dotal power and preéminence hardly attained, hardly 
aimed at, in any other part of Christendom; the Pon- 
tiff cannot rest below a magnificence which would 
contrast as strongly with the life of the primitive 
Bishop, as that of Lucullus with that of Fabricius. 
The prodigality of the offerings to the Church and to 


Cuape. II. LAW AGAINST HEREDIPETY. 118 


the clergy, those more especially by bequest, is so im- 
moderate, that a law? is necessary to restrain pay against 
the profuseness on one hand, the avidity on Heetrety 
the other, a law which the statesman Ambrose ? and 
the Monk Jerome approve, as demanded by the abuses 
of the times. ““ Priests of idols, mimes, charioteers, 
harlots may receive bequests; it is interdicted, and 
wisely interdicted, only to ecclesiastics and monks.” 
The Church may already seem to have taken the place 
of the emperor as universal legatee. As men before 
bought by this posthumous adulation the favor of 
Cesar, so would they now that of God. Heredipety, 
or legacy hunting, is inveighed against, in the clergy 
especially, as by the older Satirists. Jerome in his 
epistles is the Juvenal of his times, without his gross- 
ness indeed, for Christianity no doubt had greatly 
raised the standard of morals. The heathen, as repre- 
sented by such men as Preetextatus (they now seem to 
have retired into a separate community, and stood in 
relation to the general society, as the Christians had 
stood to the heathen under Vespasian or the Anto- 
nines), had partaken in the moral advancement. But 
with this great exception, this repulsive license, Jerome, 
both in the vehemence of his denunciations, and in 
his description of the vices, manners, habits of Rome, 
might seem to be writing of pre-Christian times.? 

1The law of Valentinian (A.D. 370), addressed to Damasus, bishop of 
Rome, and ordered to be read in all the churches of the city. Cod. 
Theodos. xiv. 2, 20. 

2 Ambros. Epist. xxii. 1.5, p. 200. Hieronym. Epist. ii. p. 13. Solis 
clericis et monachis hac lege prohibetur, et prohibetur non a persecutoribus, 
sed a principibus Christianis. Nec de lege conqueror, sed doleo cur meru- 
erimus hance legem. Hieronym. ad Nepotian. 


8 Prudentius, with poetic anachronism, throws back the jealousy of the 
heathens of the enormous wealth offered on the altars of the Christians, and 


VOL. I. 8 ' 


114 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book I. 


But the Roman character did not interwork into the 
general Christianity alone, it embraced monastic Chris- 
tianity, in all its extremest rigor, its sternest asceticism, 
with the same ardor and energy. Christian Stoicism 
could not but find its Catos; but it was principally 
among the females that the recoil seemed to take place 
from the utter shamelessness, the unspeakable profli- 
gacy of the Imperial times, to a severity of chastity, to 
a fanatic appreciation of virginity as an angelic state, 
as a kind of religious aristocratical distinction, far 
above the regular virtues of the wife or the matron. 
Pope Damasus, though by no means indifferent to the 
splendor of his office, was the patron, as his secretary 
Jerome was the preacher, of this powerful party ; and 
between this party and the priesthood of Rome there 
was already that hostility which has so constantly pre- 
vailed between the Regulars, the observants of monas- 
tic rule, and what were called in later times the secular 
clergy. The Monastics inveighed against the worldly 
riches, pomp, and luxury of the clergy; the clergy 
looked with undisguised jealousy on the growing, irre- 
sistible influences of the monks, especially over the 
high-born females.1 Jerome hated, and was hated 
the alienation of estates from their right heirs, into the third century. The 


Prefect of Rome reproaches the Deacon Laurentius, before his martyrdom 
(about 258), with the silver cups and golden candlesticks of the service: — 


‘Tum summa cura est fratribus — Ut sermo testatur loquax, 
Offerre, fundis venditis — Sestertiorum millia. ' 
Addicta avorum preedia — Foedis sub auctionibus, 

Successor exheres gemit — Sanctis egens parentibus. 

Hee occuluntur abditis — Ecclesiarum in angulis, 

Et summa pietas creditur — Nudare dulces liberos.”’ 
Peristeph. Hymn 11. 


Compare Paolo Sarpi delle Materie Beneficiarie, c. vi. v. iv. p. 74. 


1 Jerome spared neither the clergy nor the monks. On the clergy, see 
the passage (ad Eustochium): Sunt alii, de hominibus loquor, mei ordinis, 


Crap. II. CONTEST BETWEEN MONKS AND CLERGY. 115 


with the most cordial reciprocity. The austere Jerome 
was accused, unjustly no doubt, of more than spiritual 
intimacy with his distinguished converts; his enemies 
brought a charge of adultery against Pope Damasus 
himself.2 

Nor was this a question merely between the superior 
clergy and a man in the high and invidious position of 
Jerome, renowned for his boundless learning, and hold- 
ing the eminent office of secretary under Pope Dama- 
sus. It was a dispute which agitated the people of 
Rome. Among the female proselytes who crowded to 
the teaching of Jerome, and became his most fervent 
votaries, were some of the most illustrious matrons, 
widows, and virgins. Marcella had already, when 
Athanasius was at Rome, become enamoured of the 
hard and recluse life of the female Egyptian anchor- 
ites. But she was for some time alone. The satiric 
Romans laughed to scorn this new and superstitious 
Christianity. A layman, Helvidius, wrote a book 
against it, a book of some popularity, which Jerome 
answered with his usual controversial fury and con- 
qui ideo presbyteratum et diaconatum ambiunt ut mulieres licentius vide- 
antur. Then follows the description of a clerical coxcomb. His whole 
care is in his dress, that it be well perfumed; that his feet may not slip 
about in a loose sandal; his hair is crisped with a curling-pin; his fingers 
glitter with rings; he walks on tiptoe lest he should splash himself with the 
wet soil; when you see him, you would think him a bridegroom rather 
than an ecclesiastic. Jerome ends the passage. Et isti sunt sacerdotes 
Baal. Then on the monks (ad Nepot.): Nonnulli sunt ditiores monachi, 
quam fuerant szculares et clerici, qui possident opes sub Christo paupere, 
quas sub locuplete et fallaci Diabolo non habuerant, οὐ segg. Compare, 
throughout, the account of Jerome, in the Hist. of Christianity, vol. iii. p. 
823, et seqq. 

1Quem in tantum matrone diligebant, ut matronarum auriscalpius di- 
ceretur. So says the preface to the hostile petition, the Libellus Precum. 


Apud Sirmond. i. p. 1386. The charge of adultery is in Anastasius Vit. 
Damasi. 


110 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


temptuousness. Marcella was a widow of one of the 
oldest patrician houses, connected with all the consular 
families and with the prefect of the city. She was 
extremely rich. She became the most ardent of 
Jerome’s hearers ; her example spread with irresistible 
contagion. The sister of Marcella, Paula, with her 
two daughters, Blesilla and Eustochium,’ threw them- 
selves passionately into the same devotion. Paula, 
like her sister, was very wealthy ; she possessed great 
part of Nicopolis, the city founded by Augustus to 
commemorate the battle of Actium. Blesilla, her 
younger daughter, was a widow at the age of twenty. 
She rejected the importunate persuasions of her friends 
to contaminate herself with a second marriage. She 
abandoned herself entirely to the spiritual direction of 
Jerome ; her tender frame sank under the cruel pen- 
ances and macerations which he enjoined. The death of 
the young and beautiful widow was attributed to these 
austerities. All Rome took an indignant interest in 
her fate; her mother, for her unnatural weakness, 
became an object of general reprobation, and the 
public voice loudly denounced Jerome as guilty of her 
death. A tumult broke out at the funeral ; there was 
a loud cry,—‘t Why do we tolerate these accursed 
monks? Away with them, stone them, cast them 
into the Tiber!” 

The pontificate of Damasus, with those of his two 
immediate successors, Sirictus and Anastasius, is an 
epoch in the history of Latin Christianity, distinguished 

1 Among the other names of Jerome’s female admirers, one sounds He- 
brew, —Lea; some Greek,—Eustochium, Melanium; besides these are 
Principia, Felicitas, Feliciana, Marcellina, Asella. On Asella and the whole 


subject, see Hist. of Christianity, iii. p. 328, et segg. Compare also a later 
work Gfrorer, Kirchen-Geschichte, ii. p. 631, et segq. 


Cap. IL. EXTENSION OF MONACHISM. 117 


by the commencement of three great changes :—TI. 
The progress towards sovereignty, at least over the 
Western Church: the steps thus made in advance will 
find their place in the general view of the Papal power 
on the accession of Innocent I. II. The rapidly im- 
creasing power of monasticism. III. The promulga- 
tion of a Latin version of the Scriptures, which be- 
came the religious code of the West, was received as 
of equal authority with the original Greek or Hebrew, 
and thus made the Western independent of the Eastern 
churches, superseded the original Scriptures for centu- 
ries in the greatest part of Christendom, operated pow- 
erfully on the growth of Latin Christian literature, 
contributed to establish Latin as the language of the 
Church, and still tends to maintain the unity with 
Rome of all nations whose languages have been chiefly 
formed from the Latin. 

Of both these events, the extension of monasticism, 
and the promulgation of the Vulgate Bible, Jerome 
was the author; of the former principally, of the latter 
exclusively. This was his great and indefeasible title 
to the appellation of a Father of the Latin, Church. 
Whatever it may owe to the older and fragmentary 
versions of the sacred writings, Jerome’s Bible is a 
wonderful work, still more as achieved by one man, 
and that a Western Christian, even with all the advan- 
tage of study and of residence in the East. It almost 
created a new language. The inflexible Latin became 
pliant and expansive, naturalizing foreign Eastern im- 
agery, Eastern modes of expression and of thought, 
and Eastern religious notions, most uncongenial to its 
own genius and character ; and yet retaining much of 
‘ts own peculiar strength, solidity, and majesty. If the 


118 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book I. 


Northern, the Teutonic languages, coalesce with greater 
facility with the Orientalism of the Scriptures, it is the 
triumph of Jerome to have brought the more dissonant 
Latin into harmony with the Eastern tongues. The 
Vulgate was even more, perhaps, than the Papal power 
the foundation of Latin Christianity. 

Jerome cherished the secret hope, if it was not the 
avowed object of his ambition, to succeed Damasus as 
the Bishop of Rome. He was designated, he says, 
almost by unanimous consent for that dignity. Is the 
rejection of an aspirant so singularly unfit for the sta- 
tion, from his violent passions, his insolent treatment 
of his adversaries, his utter want of self-command, his 
almost unrivalled faculty of awakening hatred, to be 
attributed to the sagacious and intuitive wisdom of 
Rome? Or, as is far more probable, did the vanity 
of Jerome mistake outward respect for general attach- 
ment, awe of his abilities and learning for admiration, 
and so blind him to the ill-dissembled, if dissembled, 
hostility which he had provoked in so many quarters ? 
It is difficult to refrain from speculating on his eleva- 
tion. How signally dangerous would it have been to 
have loaded the rising Papacy with the responsibility 
of all, or even a large part of the voluminous works 
of Jerome! The station of a Father of the Church, 
one of the four great Latin Fathers, committed Chris- 
tendom to a less close adhesion to all his opinions, while 
at the same time it placed him above jealous and hos- 
tile scrutiny. It was not till two centuries later, when 
speculative subjects had ceased to agitate the Christian 
mind, and the creed and the discipline had settled down 


1 Omnium pene judicio, dignus summo sacerdotio decernebatur. Epist. 
xly. ad Asellam, 3. 


Onap. II. THE FIRST DECRETAL. 119 


to a mature and established form, that a Father of the 
Church, a voluminous writer, could safely appear on 
the episcopal throne of Rome. Gregory the Great 
was at once the representative and the voice of the 
Christianity of his age. Nor could the great work of 
Jerome have been achieved at Rome, assuredly not by 
a Pope. It was in his cell at Bethlehem, meditating 
and completing the Vulgate, that Jerome fixed for 
centuries the dominion of Latin Christianity over the 
mind of man. Siricius was the successor of 
Damasus.! Jerome left ungrateful Rome, 
against whose sins the recluse of Palestine becomes 
even more impassioned, whose clergy and people be- 
come blacker and more inexcusable in his harsher and 
more unsparing denunciations. 

The pontificate of Siricius is memorable for the first 
authentic Decretal, the first letter of the Bishop of 
Rome, which became a law to the Western Church, 
_and the foundation of the vast system of ecclesiastical 
jurisprudence. It betrays the Roman tendency to 
harden into inflexible statute that which was left before 
to usage, opinion, or feeling. ‘The East enacted creeds, 
the West discipline. 

The Decree of Siricius was addressed to Himerius, 
Bishop of Tarragona.? Himerius had writ- phe pecretal. 
ten before the death of Damasus to consult “? Ὁ 
the Bishop of Rome on certain doubtful points of 
usage, the validity of heretical baptism, the treatment 
of apostates, of religious persons guilty of incontinence, 
the steps which the clergy were to pass through to the 
higher ranks, and the great question of all, the celi- 


Pope Siricius. 
A.D. 384-898. 


1 Damasus died Dee. 11. 
2 Apud Mansi, sub ann. 385, or Constant. Epist. Pontificum. 


120 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


bacy of the clergy. The answer of Siricius is in the 
tone of one who supposes that the usages of the 
Church of Rome were to be received as those of Chris- 
tendom. It was to be communicated beyond the prov- 
ince of Tarragona, throughout Spain, in Carthagena, 
Beetica, Lusitania, Galicia: it appears, by an allusion 
in a writing of Pope Innocent I., even in Southern 
Gaul. The all-important article was on the marriage 
of the clergy ; this was peremptorily interdicted, as by 
an immutable ordinance, to all priests and deacons. 
This law, while it implied the ascendancy of monastic 
opinions, showed likewise that there was a large part 
of the clergy who could only be controlled into celibacy 
by law. Even now the law was forced to make some 
temporary concessions. Those who confessed that it 
was a fault, and could plead ignorance that celibacy 
was an established usage of the Church, were exempted 
from penalties, but could not hope for promotion to a 
higher rank. 

This unrepealed law was one of the characteristics 
of Latin Christianity. Her first voice of authority 
Celibacy of Might seem to utter the stern prohibition. 
the Clergy. This, more than any other measure, sepa-~ 
rated the sacerdotal order from the rest of society, from 
the common human sympathies, interests, affections. 
It justified them to themselves in assuming a dignity 
superior to the rest of mankind, and seemed their title 
to enforce acknowledgment and reverence for that 
superior dignity. The monastic principle admitting, 
virtually at least, almost to its full extent, the Mani- 
chean tenet of the innate sinfulness of all sexual inter- 
course as partaking of the inextinguishable impurity 
of Matter, was gradually wrought into the general 


Crap. IL. CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 121 


feeling. Whether marriage was treated as in itself an 
evil, perhaps to be tolerated, but still degrading to 
human nature, as by Jerome? and the more ascetic 
teachers ; or honored, as by Augustine, with a specious 
adulation, only to exalt virginity to a still loftier height 
above it ;? the clergy were taught to assert it at once 
as a privilege, as a distinction, as the consummation 
and the testimony to the sacredness of their order. 
As there was this perpetual appeal to their pride (they 
were thus visibly set apart from the vulgar, the rest of 
mankind),® so they were compelled to its observance 
at once by the law of the Church, and by the fear of 
falling below their perpetual rivals, the monks, in the 
general estimation. The argument of their greater 
usefulness to Christian society, of their more entire 
devotion to the duties of their holy function by being 
released from the cares and duties of domestic life: 
the noble Apostolic motive, that they ought to be 
bound to the world by few, and those the most fragile 
ties, in order more fearlessly to incur danger, or to sac- 
rifice even life more readily in the cause of the Cross ; 
such low incentives were disdained as beneath consid- 
eration. Some hardy opponents, Helvidius, Jovinian, 
Vigilantius, and others of more obscure name, endeay- 
ored to stem the mingling tide of authority and popu- 
lar sentiment; they were swept away by its resistless 


1On Jerome’s views see quotations Hist. of Christianity, iii. 320, et seqq. 

2Gaudium virginum Christi—de Christo, in Christo, cum Christo, post 
Christum, per Christum, propter Christum. Sequantur itaque agnum qui 
virginitatem corporis amiserunt, non quocunque ille ierit, sed quousque ipsi 
potuerint. De Sanct. Virgin. cap. 27.— The virgin and her mother may 
both be in heaven, but one a bright, the other a dim star. Serm. 354, ad 
Continent. 

8 Quid interesset inter populum et sacerdotem, si iisdem ad stringerentur 
tegibus. Ambros. Epist. Lxiii. ad Eccl. Vercell. 


122 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


force! They boldly called in question the first princi- 
ples of the new Christian theory, and in the name of 
reason, nature, and the New Testament, denied this 
inherent perfection of virginity, as compared with law- 
ful marriage. Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, lifted up 
at once their voices against these unexpected and mis- 
timed adversaries. Jerome went so far in his dispar- 
agement of marriage, as to be disclaimed by his own 
ardent admirers: but still his adversaries have been 
handed down to posterity under the ill-omened name 
of heretics, solely, or almost solely on this account. 
They live, in his vituperative’ pages, objects of scorn 
more than of hatred. So unpopular was their resist- 
ance to the spirit of the age. The general feeling 
shuddered at their refusal to admit that which had 
now become one of the leading articles of Latin 
Christian faith. Yet, notwithstanding this, the law 
of the Celibacy of the Clergy, even though imposed 
with such overweening authority, was not received 
without some open and more tacit resistance. There 
were few, perhaps, courageous or far-sighted enough 
to oppose the principle itself, though even among 
bishops Jovinian was not without followers. Others, 
incautiously admitting the principle, struggled to 
escape from its consequences. In some regions the 
married clergy formed the majority, and, always sup- 
porting married bishops by their suffrages and influ- 
ence, kept up a formidable succession. Still Chris- 
tendom was against them; and in most cases, those 
who were conscientiously opposed to these austere re- 
strictions, had recourse to evasions or secret violations 


11 have entered somewhat more at length into this controversy in the 
Hist. of Christianity. 


cHapP. II. EXTINCTION OF PAGANISM. 123 


of the law, infinitely more dangerous to public morals. 
Throughout the whole period, from Pope Siricius to 
the Reformation, as must appear in the course of our 
history, the law was defied, infringed, eluded. It 
never obtained anything approaching to general ob- 
servance, though its violation was at times more open, 
at times more clandestine. 

The Pontificates of Damasus and Siricius beheld 
almost the last open struggles of expirmg Roman pagan- 
ism, the dispute concerning the Statue of gytinction of 
Victory in the Senate, the secession of a large ἘΒΕΡΌ ΕΟ 
number of the more distinguished senators, the plead- 
ings of the eloquent Symmachus for the toleration of 
the religion of ancient Rome. To such humiliation 
were reduced the deities of the Capitol, the gods, who, 
as was supposed, had achieved the conquest of the 
world, and laid it at the feet of Rome. But in this 
great contest the Bishop of Rome filled only an inferior 
part ; it was Ambrose,,the Bishop of Milan, who en- 
forced the final sentence of condemnation against pa- 
ganism, asserted the sin, in a Christian Emperor, of 
assuming any Imperial title connected with pagan wor- 
ship, and of permitting any portion of the public reve- 
nue to be expended on the rites of idolatry. It was 
Ambrose who forbade the last marks of respect to the 
tutelar divinities of Rome in the public ceremonies. 

Latin Christianity, in truth, in all but its monarchi- 
cal strength, in its unity under one Head, and under one 
code of ecclesiastical law, enacted and executed in its last 
resort by that Head, was established in its dominion over 
the human mind without the walls of Rome. It was 
Jerome who sent forth the Vulgate from his retreat 
in Palestine ; it was Ambrose of Milan who raised the 
sacerdotal power to more than independence, limited 


124 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I 


the universal homage paid to the Imperial authority, 
protected youthful and feeble Emperors, and in the 
name of justice and of humanity rebuked the greatest 
sovereien of the age. It was Augustine, Bishop of 
the African Hippo, who organized Latin theology ; 
wrought Christianity into the minds and hearts of men 
by his impassioned autobiography ; and finally, under 
the name of the ‘City of God,” established that new 
and undefined kingdom, at the head of which the 
Bishop of Rome was hereafter to place himself as Sov- 
ereign ; that vast polity, which was to rise out of the 
ruins of ancient and pagan Rome; if not to succeed 
at once to the temporal supremacy, to superinduce a 
higher government, that of God himself. This divine 
government was sure eventually to fall to those who 
were already aspiring to be the earthly representatives 
of God. The Theocracy of Augustine, comprehending 
both worlds, Heaven as well as earth, was far more 
sublime, as more indefinite, than the spiritual monarchy 
of the later Popes. It established, it contemplated no 
such external or visible autocracy, but it prepared the 
way for it in the minds of men; the spiritual City of 
God became a secular monarchy ruling by spiritual 
means. 

It may be well here to close the fourth century of 
Christianity, which ended in the uneventful pontificate 
Anastasius I. of Anastasius I. Four hundred years had now 
elapsed since the birth of the Redeemer. The gospel 
was the established religion of both parts of the Roman 
Empire; Greek and Latin Christianity divided the 
Roman world. Most of the barbarians, who had set- 
tled within the frontiers of the Empire, had submitted 
to her religion. With Christianity the hierarchical sys- 
tem had embraced the world. 


BOOK II. 


BOOK II.— CONTEMPORARY CHRONOLOGY. 


PATRIARCHS 
OF 
ALEXANDRIA. 


BISHOPS 
OF 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 


A.D.|A.D. 


A.D. 


A.D. A.D. 


397. Chrysostom.404. |395. Theophilus. 412. 
402. Innocent I. 417.|404. Arsacius. 405. 


406. Atticus. 425. 


417. Zosimus. 418. 

418. Bonifacius. 422. 

418. (Eulalius, 419. 
Antipope). 

422. Coelestinus 432. |/426. Sisinnius. 

ie 


412, Cyril. 444. 


421. 


428. Nestorius, 481. 
(deposed. ) 

482. Sixtus IIT. 440./4381.Maximianus.434. 

434. Proclus. 447. 


440. Leo I. 461.|447. Flavianus, 449. 
(murdered.) 


444. Dioscorus, 451. 
(deposed. ) 


449. Anatolius. 458. 
458. Gennadius. 471. |451. Proterius, 460. 
Timotheus 
lurus, ri- 
yal bishops. 
460.Salofaciolus.477. 
T. Alurus. 


BISHOPS 
OF 
JERUSALEM. 


EMPERORS 
OF 
THE WEST. 


EMPERORS 
OF 
THE EAST. 


PATRIARCHS 
OF 
ANTIOCH. 


‘ A.D. 
381. Flavianus. 404. 


404. Porphyrius.414. 


A.D. 
386. John. 416. 


A.D. 


895. Honorius. 


A.D. A.D. 


428, 395. Arcadius. 408. 
408. eid 450. 


. Alexander, 421./416. Praylus. 428. 


. Theodotus. 429, 
442. 


428. Juyenalis. 458. 424. Valentinian 455. 


11. 


. Jobn I. 


. Domnus 11.449. 
(deposed.) 


455. 
458. 


459. 


460. Martyrius, 471. 
(abdicated.) 


. Maximus. 
. Basilius. 


458. Anastasius. 478. | 455. fa 450. Marcian. 457. 
vitus. 
Majorian. 461.|457. Leo I. 474. 


461. Severus. 464. 


. Acacius. 


id 


120 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


BOOK IL. 


—_@— 


CHAPTER I. 
INNOCENT I. 


Tue fifth century of Christianity has begun, and 
now arises a line of Roman prelates, some of them 
from their personal character, as well as from the cir- 
cumstances of the time, admirably qualified to advance 
the supremacy of the See of Rome, at least over West- 
ern Christendom. 5 

Christianity, in its Latin form, which for centuries 
was to be its most powerful, enduring, prolific develop- 
ment, wanted, for her stability and unity of influence, 
a capital and a centre; and Rome might seem deserted 
by her emperors for the express purpose of allowing the 
spiritual monarchy to grow up without any dangerous 
collision against the civil government. The emperors 
had long withdrawn from Rome as the royal residence. 
Of those who bore the title, one ruled in Constanti- 
nople, and, more and more absorbed in the cares and 
Rome centre Calamities of the Eastern sovereignty, became 
of the West. oradually estranged from the affairs of the 
West. Nor was it till the time of Justinian that any 
attempt was made to révive his imperial pretensions to 
Rome. The Western Emperor lingered for a time in 
inglorious obscurity among the marshes of Ravenna, 


Cuap. I. ROME CENTRE OF THE WEST. 107 


till at length the faint shadow of monarchy melted 
away, and a barbarian assumed the power and the ap- 
pellation of Sovereign of Italy. Still, of the barba- 
rian kings, not one ventured to fix himself in the an- 
cient capital, or to inhabit the mouldering palaces of 
the older Cesars. Nor could Ravenna, Milan, or 
Pavia, though the seats of monarchs, obscure the great- 
ness of Rome in general reverence: they were still 
provincial cities; nor could they divert the tide of 
commerce, of concourse, of legal, if not of administra- 
tive business, which, however more irregular and inter- 
mitting, still flowed towards Rome. The internal goy- 
ernment of the city retained something of the old 
republican form which had been permitted to subsist 
under the despotism of the emperors. Above the con- 
suls or Senate, the shadows of former magistracies, the 
supreme authority was vested in a delegate, or repre- 
sentative of the Emperor, the prefect, or governor ; 
but, with the empire, that authority became more and 
more powerless. The aristocracy, as we shall erelong 
see, were scattered abroad after the capture of the city 
by Alaric, and were never after reorganized into a 
powerful party. Some centuries elapsed before that 
feudal oligarchy grew up, which, at a later period, 
were such dangerous enemies to the Papacy, degrading 
it to the compulsory appointment of turbulent or im- 
moral prelates, or by the personal insult, and even the 
murder, of popes. During the following period, there- 
fore, the Bishop of Rome, respected by the barbarians, 
even by the fiercest pagans, none of whom were quite 
without awe of the high priesthéod of the Roman relig- 
ion, and, by that respect, commended still more strongly 
to the reverence of all Latin Christians ; alone hallowed, 


128 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


as it were, ana permitted to maintain his serene dignity 
amid scenes of violence, confusion, and bloodshed ; 
grew rapidly up to be the most important person in the 
city; if not in form the supreme magistrate, yet dom- 
inant in influence and admitted authority, the all-vene- 
rated Head of the Church ; and where the civil power 
thus lay prostrate, assuming, without awakening jealousy 
and for the public advantage, many of its functions, 
and maintaining some show of order and of rule. 

It was not solely as a Christian bishop, and bishop 
of that city, which was still, according to the prevail- 
ing feeling, the capital of the world, but as the suc- 
Succession to cessor of St. Peter, of him who was now 
St. Peter. acknowledged to be the head of the apos- 
tolic body, that the Roman pontiff commanded the 
veneration of Rome and of Christendom. ‘The pri- 
macy of St. Peter, and the primacy of Rome, had been 
long reacting upon each other in the minds of men, 
and took root in the general sentiment. The Church 
of Rome would own no founder less than the chief 
Apostle ; and the distance between St. Peter and the 
rest of the Apostles, even St. Paul himself, was in- 
creased by his being acknowledged as the spiritual 
ancestor of the Bishop of Rome. At the commence- 
ment of the fifth century, the lineal descent of the 
Pope from St. Peter was an accredited tenet of Chris- 
tianity. As yet his pretensions to supremacy were 
vague and unformed; but when authority is in the 
ascendant, it is the stronger for being indefinite. It 
is almost a certain sign that it is becoming precarious, 
or has been called in’ question, when it condescends 
to appeal to precedent, written statute, or regular juris- 
diction. 


Cuap. 1. UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 129 


Everything tended to confirm, nothing to impede 
or weaken the gradual condensation of the supreme 
ecclesiastical power in the Supreme Bishop. The 
majesty of the notion of one all-powerful ruler, to 
which the world had been so long familiarized in 
the emperors; the discord and emulation among the 
other prelates, both of the East and West, and the 
manifest advantage of a supreme arbiter; the Unity 
of the visible Church, which was becoming, Unity of the 
—or had, indeed, become—the dominant ©?™?- 
idea of Christendom; all seemed to demand, or at 
least, had a strong tendency to promote and to main- 
tain the necessity of one Supreme Head. As the 
unity in Christ was too sublimely spiritual, so the 
supremacy of the collective episcopate, which endowed 
each bishop with an equal portion of apostolic dignity 
and of power, was a notion too speculative and meta- 
physical for the common mind. Councils were only 
occasional diets, or general conventions, not a standing 
representative Senate of Christendom. There was a 
simplicity and distinctness in the conception of one 
visible Head to one visible body, such as forcibly 
arrests and fully satisfies the less inquiring mind, 
which still seeks something firm and stable whereon 
to repose its faith. Cyprian, in whom the unity of 
the Church had taken its* severest form, though prac- 
tically he refused to submit the independence of the 
African churches to the dictation of Rome, did far 
more to advance her power by the primacy which 
he assigned to St. Peter, than he impaired it by his 
steady and disdainful repudiation of her authority, 
whenever it was brought to the test of submission.} 


1 Qui cathedram Petri, super quem fundata est Ecclesia, deserit, in ec- 
VOL. I. 9 


130 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IL. 


In the West, throughout Latin Christendom, the 
Roman See, in antiquity, in dignity, in the more 
regular succession of its prelates, stood alone and 
unapproachable. In the great Eastern bishoprics the 
holy lineage had been already broken and confused 
by the claims of rival prelates, by the usurpation of 
bishops, accounted heretical, at the present period 
Arians or Macedonians or Apollinarians, later Nes- 
torians or Monophysites. Jerusalem had never ad- 
vanced that claim to which it might seem entitled by 
its higher antiquity. Jerusalem was not universally 
acknowledged as an Apostolic See; at all events it was 
the capital of Judaism rather than of Christianity ; 
and the succession, at the time of the Jewish war, 
and during the period of desolation to the time of 
Hadrian, had been interrupted at least in its local 
descent. At one period Jerusalem was subordinate 
to the Palestinian Ceesarea. Antioch had been per- 
petually contested ; its episcopal line had been vitiated, 
its throne contaminated by the actual succession of 
several Arian prelates.1 In Alexandria the Arian 
prelates had been considered lawless usurpers: the 
orthodox Church had never voluntarily submitted to 
their jurisdiction ; and Alexandria had been hallowed 
as the episcopal seat of the great Athanasius. But 
Athanasius himself, when driven from his see, had 
clesié se esse confidit? This was a plain and intelligible doctrine. Episco- 
patus unus est, cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur— was a conception 
far more yague and abstract, and therefore far less popular. De Unit. 
Eecl. See for the dispute with Stephen, Bishop of Rome, ch. i. 

1 The obvious difficulty of the Primacy of Antioch as the first See of St. 
Peter, which, it might seem, had been, if not objected, at least suggested, 
was thus met by Innocent I. Qu urbis Rome sedi non cederet, nisi quod 


ipsa in transitu meruit, ista susceptum apud se, consummatumque gaudet. 
— Innocent. Epis. xix. ad Alexand. 


Cuap. I. SILENT AGGRESSIONS OF ROME. 131 


found a hospitable reception at Rome, and constant 
support from the Roman Bishops. His presence had 
reflected a glory upon that see, which, but for one 
brief period of compulsory apostacy, had remained 
rigidly attached to the orthodox Trinitarian opinions. 
Constantinople was but a new city, and had no pre- 
tensions to venerable or apostolic origin. It had at- 
tained, indeed, to the dignity of a patriarchate, but 
only by the decree of a recent council; in other 
respects it owed all its eminence to being the prelacy 
of new Rome, of the seat of empire. The feuds 
and contests between the rival patriarchates of the 
East were constantly promoting the steady progress 
of Rome towards supremacy. Throughout the fierce 
rivalry between Alexandria and Constantinople, the 
hostilities which had even now begun between Theo- 
philus and Chrysostom, and which were continued 
with implacable violence between Cyril and Nesto- 
rius, Flavianus and Dioscorus, the alliance of the 
Bishop of Rome was too important not to be pur- 
chased at. any sacrifice ; and if the independence of 
the Eastern churches was compromised, if not by an 
appeal to Rome, at least by the ready admission of 
her interference, the leaders of the opposing parties 
were too much occupied by their immediate objects, 
and blinded by factious passions, to discern or to 
regard the consequences of these silent aggressions. 
From the personal or political objects of these feuds 
the Bishop of Rome might stand aloof; in the relig- 
ious questions he might mingle in undisturbed dignity, 
or might offer himself as mediator, just as he might 
choose the occasion, and almost on his own terms. 
At the same time, not merely on the great subject 


132 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


of the Trinity, had Rome repudiated the more ob- 
noxious heresy, even on less vital questions, the Latin 
capital happy in the exemption from controversial 
bishops had rarely swerved from the canon of severe 
orthodoxy ; and if any one of her bishops had been 
forced or perplexed into a rash or erroneous decision, as 
Liberius, during his short concession to semi-Arian- 
ism; or, as we shall see before long, Zosimus to Pela- 
gianism ; and a still later pope, who was bewildered 
into Monophytism; their errors were effaced by a 
speedy, full, and glorious recantation. 

Thus the East, agitated by furious conflicts con- 
the μα cerning the highest doctrines of Christian- 
courts Rome. ity, concerning the preéminence of the rival 
sees for dominant influence with the Emperor, was 
still throwing itself, as each faction was oppressed by 
its rival, at the feet of remote and more impartial 
Rome. In the West, at the same time, the disputes 
which were constantly arising about points of disci- 
pline, the succession of bishops, the boundaries of 
conflicting jurisdictions, still demanded and were glad 
to have recourse to a foreign arbitrator; and who so 
fitting an arbiter as the Bishop of that city, which, 
in theory at least, was still the centre of civil govern- 
ment, the seat of Ceesar’s tribunal, to whom the Roman 
world had acquired a settled and inveterate habit of 
appeal? Rome the mother of civil, might likewise 
give birth to canonical jurisprudence.! 

For the great talisman of the Papal influence was 

1 Until the Roman Curia became inordinate in its exactions, and so 
utterly venal as it is universally represented in later centuries, this 
arbitration, when so much was yet unsettled, while the new society was 


yet in the process of formation, must have tended to peace and so to the 
strength of Christianity. 


Cuapr. I. NAME OF ROME. 133 


the yet majestic name of Rome. The bishops ἡ τις οἱ 
gave laws to the city, which had so long ®™e- 
given, and still to so great an extent, gave laws to 
the world. In the sentiment of mankind, at least in 
the West, Rome had never been dethroned from her 
supremacy. ‘There were still Roman armies, Roman 
laws, Roman municipalities, Roman literature, in name 
at least a Roman Empire. Constantinople boasted 
rather than disdained the appellation of New Rome. 
But while the Bishops of Rome retained much of the 
awe and reverence which adhered to the name, they 
stood aloof from all which desecrated and degraded 
it. It was the idolatrous and pagan Rome which fell 
before the barbarians, or rather was visited for its vices - 
and crimes, its persecutions, and its still obstinate in- 
fidelity, by those terrible instruments of the divine 
vengeance. As our history will show, the discom- 
fiture of the heathen Rhadagaisus, and the tutelary, 
though partial, protection which Christianity spread 
over the city during the capture by Alaric (to which 
Augustine triumphantly appealed), were not oblit- 
erated by the unawed and remorseless devastation 
of Genseric. The retreat of Attila, the most ter- 
fible of all the Northern conquerers, before the im- 
posing sanctity, as it was universally believed, of Pope 
Leo, blended again in indissoluble alliance the sacred 
security of Rome with the authority of her bishop. 


1See in Ausonius the curious ordo of the cities of the Empire. —1. 
Prima urbes inter, divfim domus, aurea Roma. —2. Constantinople, before 
whom bows 3. Carthage—4. Antioch—5. Alexandria—6. Treves—7. 
Milan —8. Capua —9. Aquileia—10. Arles—11. Merida —12. Athens — 
13. 14. Catania, Syracuse —15. Toulouse —16. Narbonne —17. Bordeaux. 
The poet is a Gaul, a native of Bordeaux. Ravenna seems to have fallen 
into obscurity. Ausonii. Poem. 


194 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


Leo himself, as will be hereafter seen, exalts St. Peter 
and St. Paul into the Romulus and Remus of the new 
universal Roman dominion. 

It was at this period (the commencement of the 
Accession of fifth century), when the Imperial power was 
Innocent. declining towards extinction in the hands 
of the feeble Honorius, and the Roman arms were 
for the last time triumphant, under Stilicho, over the 
Northern barbarians, that a prelate was placed on the 
episcopal throne of Rome, of a bolder and more impe- 
rious nature, of unimpeachable holiness, who held the 
pontifical power for a longer period than usual in the 
rapid succession of the bishops of Rome. Ambrose 
was now dead, and there was no Western prelate, 
at least in Europe, whose fame and abilities could 
obscure that preéminence, which rank and position, 
and in his case, commanding character, bestowed on 
the Bishop of Rome. Innocent, like most of the great- 
er Popes, was by birth, if not a Roman, of the Roman 
A.p. 402. territory. He was born at Albano.’ The 
patriotism of a Roman might mingle with his holier 
aspirations for the spiritual greatness of the ancient 
mistress of the world. Upon the mind of Innocent 
appears first distinctly to have dawned the vast con- 
ception of Rome’s universal ecclesiastical supremacy, 
dim as yet and shadowy, yet full and comprehensive 
in its outline. 

Up to the accession of Innocent, the steps by which 
the See of Rome, during the preceding century, had 
advanced towards the legal recognition of a suprem- 


1 There is an expression in one of St. Jerome’s letters, which, taken lit- 
erally, asserts Innocent to have been the son of his predecessor Anastasius. 
Qui apostolic cathedrx et supradicti viri successor et jilius est. Is it to be 
presumed that this is an incautious metaphor of St. Jerome? 


(παρ. I. ACCESSION OF INNOCENT. 135 


acy, were few but not unimportant; the first had 
been made by the Council of Sardica, the renown of 
whose resolute orthodoxy gave it peculiar weight in 
all parts of Christendom, where the Athanasian Trini- 
tarianism maintained its ascendency. It is not difficult 
to trace the motives which influenced the Bishops at 
Sardica. Great principles are often established by 
measures which grow out of temporary interests. The 
Western orthodox Bishops at Sardica hardly escaped 
being out-numbered by their heretical adversaries ; 
there were ninety-four on one side, seventy-six on 
the other. Had not the turbulent, but irresolute, 
minority withdrawn to Philippopolis, and there set up 
a rival synod, the issue might have been almost doubt- 
ful; at all events, where parties were so evenly bal- 
anced, intrigue, accident, activity on one part, supine- 
ness on the other, or the favor of the Emperor, garaica 347. 

might summon an assembly, in which the pre- "’™™ °°? 

ponderance would be in favor of Arianism (it was so 
a few years after at Rimini); and thus might heresy 
gain the sanction of a Council of Christendom. But 
Rome had, up to this-time, before the fall of Liberius, 
so firmly, so repeatedly, so solemnly, embraced the 
cause of Athanasius, that it might seem to be irrevo- 
cably committed to orthodoxy ; an appeal to Rome, 
therefore, would always give an opportunity to an 
orthodox minority, to annul or to suspend the decrees 
of an heretical Church. In all causes, therefore, of 
bishops (and not merely were the bishops in general 
the chief members of Councils, but the first proceed- 
ing of all the Councils, at this period, was to depose 
the prelates of the opposite party) an appeal to Rome 
would both secure a second hearing, by more favorable 


130 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


judges, of the subject under controversy, and might 
maintain, notwithstanding adverse decrees, all the or- 
thodox bishops upon their thrones. The Council of 
Sardica, therefore, in its canons, established the law, 
that on an appeal to the Bishop of Rome, he might 
decide whether the judgment was to be reconsidered, 
and appoint judges for the second hearing of the cause ; 
he might even, if he thought fit, take the initiative ; 
and delegate an ecclesiastic “‘ from his side,” to institute 
a commission of inquiry.? 

The right of appeal to Rome, thus established by 
ecclesiastical, was confirmed by Imperial authority dur- 


av.421. ing the reign of Valentinian III. Up to that 
Law of Val- Sy τί A é 
entinian. time the Emperors, if they did not possess by 


the constitution of the Church, exercised nevertheless 
by virtue of their supreme and indefeasible authority, 
and by the irresistible, and, as yet rarely contested, 
tenure of power, the right of summary decision in 
religious as in civil causes. A feeble emperor would 
willingly devolve on a more legitimate court these 
troublesome and perplexing affairs. To a monarch, 
another spiritual Monarch would appear at once the 
most natural and the most efficient delegate to relieve 
him from these burdens; he would feel no jealousy 
of such useful and unconflicting autocracy ; and the 
Western Emperor would of course invest in this part 
of the Imperial prerogative the Bishop of the Imperial 
City. 

Now too the temporal power, the Empire, was sink- 
‘ng rapidly into the decrepitude of age, the Papacy 


1 Et si judicaverit renovandum esse judicium, renovetur, et det judices; 
si autem probayerit, talem causam esse, ut non refricetur, ea que acta sunt, 
quz decreverant, confirmata erant. Can. 8.— Can. 5 permits him to send 
this presbyterum a latere. Mansi, sub ann. 


. 


Snap. I. DECREPITUDE OF TEMPORAL POWER. 137 


rising in the first vigor of its youthful ambition. 
Honorius was cowering in the palace of Ravenna 
from the perils which were convulsing the empire on 
all sides, while the provinces were withdrawing their 
doubtful allegiance, or in danger of being dissevered 
from the Roman dominion. Innocent was on the 
episcopal throne of Rome, asserting his almost des- 
potic spiritual control over those very provinces. 
Innocent, in his assertion of supremacy, might seem 
to disdain the authority of Council or Emperor. He 
declares, in one of his earliest epistles, that all the 
churches of the West, not of Italy alone, but of 
Gaul, Spain, and Africa, having been planted by St. 
Peter and his successors, owe filial obedience to the 
parent See, are bound to follow her example in all 
points of discipline, and to maintain a rigid uniformity 
with all her usages.'. To the minutest point Rome 
will again be the legislator of the world; and it is 
singular to behold a representative, as it were, of each 
of these provinces bringing the first fruits of that def- 
erence, which was construed into unlimited allegiance, 
to the feet of the majestic Pontiff. The Bishop of 
Rouen requests from the Bishop of Rome, the rules 
of ecclesiastical discipline observed within his See.2 


1Cum sit manifestum in omnem Italiam, Gallias, Hispanias, Africam 
atque Siciliam insulasque intervenientes nullum instituisse ecclesias nisi 
eos quos venerabilis Apostolus Petrus ejusque successores constituerint 
sacerdotes. Epist. ad Decent. Episcop. Eugubin. 

Jaffe dates this Epist. 416. March 19. Labbe, ii. p. 1249. 

2 In the third rule, which gives the provincial synods of bishops supreme 
authority in their own province, the words “sine prejudicio tamen Ro- 
man ecclesix, cui in omnibus causis debet reverentia custodiri,” are re- 
jected as a late interpolation. Epist. ad Victricium. Labbe, ii. p. 1249. 

Dilectio tua institutum secuta prudentium, ad sedem apostolicam referre 
maluit, quid de rebus dubiis custodiri deberet, potius quam usurpatione 


, 


138 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


Innocent approves the zeal of the Gaulish Bishop 
for uniformity, so contrary to the lawless spirit of 
innovation, which prevailed in some parts of the Chris- 
tian world; and sends him a book containing certain 
regulations of peculiar severity, especially as to the 
404. Feb. 15. celibacy of the clergy. Exuperius, Bishop 
of Toulouse, is commended in a still more lofty and 
protecting tone of condescension for his wise recourse 
to the See of Rome, rather than the usurpation of 
undue authority. To the Spanish Synod of Toledo, 
the Bishop of Rome speaks something in the character 
of an appellant judge. The province of Ilyricum, 
including Macedonia and Greece, on the original divis- 
405.Feb. ion, had been adjudged to the Western Em- 
pire. The Bishop of Rome exercised a certain juris- 
diction, granted or recognized by the Council of Sar- 
dica, as the Metropolitan of the West. Damasus 
had appointed the Bishop of Thessalonica, as a kind 
of legate or representative of his authority. Innocent, 
in his epistle to the Bishops of Macedonia, expresses 
a haughty astonishment that his decisions are not 
admitted without examination, and gravely insinuates 
that some wrong may be intended to the dignity of 
the Apostolical See.1 More doubtful was the allegiance 
av.414. οὗ Africa. At the commencement of Inno- 
cent’s pontificate, his influence with the Emperor was 
presumpta, que sibi viderentwr, de singulis obtinere. Ad Exup. Epise. 
Tol. Labbe, ii. p. 1254. 

1 Jn quibus (epistolis) multa posita pervidi que stuporem mentibus nos- 
tris inducerent, facerentque nos non modicum dubitare utrum aliter putare- 
mus an ita esse posita, quemadmodum personabant. (uz cum szpius 
repeti fecissem, adverti, sedi apostolic ad quam relatio, quasi ad caput 
ecclesiarum missa esse debebat, aliquam fieri injuriam, cujus adhuc in 


ambiguum sententia duceretur. Epist. xxii. ad Episc. Macedon. Labbe, ii. 
1272. 


Car. I. CHRYSOSTOM. 139 


solicited for the suppression of the obstinate Donatists. 
Towards the close of his life, a correspondence took 
place concerning Pelagius and his doctrines. The 
African Churches, even Augustine himself, did not 
disguise their apprehension, that Innocent might be 
betrayed into an approbation of those tenets; they 
desired to strengthen their own stern and peremp- 
tory decrees with the concurrence of the Bishop of 
Rome. The language of Innocent was in 4». 417. 
his wonted imperious style; the African Churches 
seem to have treated his pretensions to superiority 
with silent disregard. 

In the East, Constantinople, Alexandria, and even 
Antioch, were driven by their own bitter yrnocent and 
feuds and hostilities, to court the alliance of Cb7ys°sto™: 
Rome ; it could hardly be without some com- 4-»- 404. 
promise of independence. 

In espousing the cause of Chrysostom against his 
rival Theophilus of Alexandria, Innocent took that 
side which was supported by the better and wiser, as 
well as by the popular voice of Christendom. He was 
the fearless advocate of persecuted holiness, of elo- 
quence, of ecclesiastical dignity, against the aggressions 
of a violent foreign prelate, who was interfering in an 
independent diocese, and against the intrigues of a 
court notoriously governed by female influence. The 
slight asperities of Chrysostom’s character, the monas- 
tic austerities which seemed to some ill suited to the 
magnificence of so great a prelate, the aggressions on 
fe privileges of some churches not strictly under his 
jurisdiction, but which were notoriously ventured for 
the promotion of Christian holiness by the suppression 
of simony and other worse vices; these less obvious 


140 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


causes of Chrysostom’s unpopularity hardly transpired 
beyond the limits of his diocese, were lost in the daz- 
zling splendor of his talents and his virtues, or forgot- 
1 Chrysostom appeared 
before the more distant Christian world as the greatest 
orator who had ever ascended the pulpit of the church. 
His name, the Golden Mouth, expressed the universal 
admiration of his powers. 

After having held Antioch under the spell of his 
oratory for many years, he had been called to the 
episcopal throne of the Eastern Metropolis by general 
acclamation. Now, notwithstanding the fond attach- 
ment of the greater part of Constantinople, and the 
manifest interposition, as it was supposed, of heaven, 
which on his banishment had shaken the guilty city 
with an earthquake and compelled his triumphant re- 
call, he was again driven from his see, degraded by the 
precipitate decree of an illegal and partial council, and 
exposed to the most merciless persecution. The one 
crime, which could have blinded into hatred the love 
and admiration of the Christian world, heterodoxy of 
opinion, was not charged against him by his most ma- 
licious enemies. His only ostensible delinquency was 
the uncompromising rebuke of vice in high places, and 
disrespect to the Imperial Majesty, which, even if true 
to the utmost, however it might astonish the timidity, 
or shock the servility of the East, im the West, to 
which the dominion of Arcadius and Eudoxia did not 
extend, would be deemed only a bold and salutary 
assertion of episcopal dignity and Christian courage. 
The letter addressed by Chrysostom, according to the 


ten among his cruel wrongs. 


1 Compare Hist. of Christianity, b. iii. ο. ix 


Cuap. I. SEE OF ANTIOCH. 141 


copies in the Greek writers, to the three great prelates 
of the West, the Bishops of Rome, Milan, and Aqui- 
leia, in the Roman copies to Innocent alone,! was writ- 
ten with all his glowing fervor and _ brilliant per- 
spicuity. After describing the scenes of outrage and 
confusion in the church at Easter, the violation of the 
sanctuary, and the insults inflicted on the sacred per- 
sons of priests and dedicated virgins and bishops, the 
Bishop of Constantinople entreats the friendly interpo- 
sition of the Western prelates to obtain a general and 
legitimate Council empowered to examine the whole 
affair. The answer of Innocent is calm, moderate, 
dignified, perhaps artful. He expresses his awful hor- 
ror at these impious scenes of violence, deep interest 
in the fate of Chrysostom ; he does not however pre- 
judge the question, he does not even refuse to commu- 
nicate with Theophilus, till after the solemn decree of 
a council. Yet the sympathies of Innocent, as of all 
the better part of Christendom, were with the eloquent, 
oppressed, and patient exile. The sentiments as well 
as the influence of the Roman prelate were erelong 
proclaimed to the world, by an Imperial letter in favor 


1There is great variation in different parts of the Roman copy: it is 
sometimes addressed to persons in the plural number, sometimes to an in- 
dividual in the singular. This appears to me no very important argument, 
though adduced by the most candid Protestant writers, 6. 9. Shroeck. This 
ery of distress would not be carefully or suspiciously worded, so as to pro- 
vide against any incautious admission of superiority, of which Chrysostom, 
under such circumstances, thought little, even if any such claims had been 
already made. But the strongest proof (if I must enter into the contro- 
versy) that Chrysostom and his followers addressed themselves to the 
bishops of Italy, as well as to that of Rome, seems to me the very passage 
in the Epistle of the Emperor Honorius, which is adduced, even by Pagi, 
to prove the contrary. Missi ad sacerdotes urbis xterne atqgue /talie utra- 
que ex parte legati; expectabatur ex omnium auctoritate sententia ... « 
Namque /i, quorum expectabatur auctoritas. 


142 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


of Chrysostom, which no perstiasion but that of Inno- 
cent could have obtained from the Emperor of the 
West. Honorius openly espoused the cause of the 
A.D. 406. exile: and though, throughout the whole of 
the transaction, the East, with something of the irrita- 
ble consciousness of wrong and injustice, resented the 
interference of the West, and treated the messengers 
of the Italian prelates with studied neglect and con- 
tumely, the defenders of Chrysostom were so clearly on 
the side of justice, humanity, generous compassion for 
the oppressed, as well as of ecclesiastical order, that 
the Bishop of Rome, the Head at least of the Italian 
prelates, could not but rise in the general estimation 
of Christendom. The fidelity of Innocent to the 
cause of Chrysostom did not cease with the death of 
the persecuted prelate: he refused to communicate 
with Atticus, his successor, or the usurper, according 
to the conflicting parties, of the See of Constantinople, 
unless Atticus would acknowledge Chrysostom to have 
been the rightful bishop until his death.1 Common 
reverence for Chrysostom, and common hostility to 
Atticus, brought Innocent into close alliance with 


1There is a regular act of excommunication, in some of the Latin 
writers — (it was brought to light by Baronius)—in which Innocent boldly 
excludes the Emperor Arcadius from the communion of the faithful. It is 
expressed with all the proud humility, the unctuous imperiousness of a 
later period. It is given up, by all the more sensible writers of the Roman 
Catholic church, principally on account of a fatal blunder. It includes the 
Dalila, the Empress Eudoxia, under the anathema. Eudoxia had been 
dead several years. (See Pagi, sub ann. 407.) Iam in constant perplex- 
ity; fearing, on one hand, to omit all notice of, on the other feeling some- 
thing like contempt for, these forgeries, which are always so injurious to the 
cause they wish to serve. As an impartial historical inquirer, I continually 
rise from them with my suspicion, even of better attested documents, so 
imuch sharpened, that I have to struggle vigorously against a general 
skepticism. 


Cuap. I. CAPTURE OF ROME BY ALARIC. 143 


Alexander, Bishop of Antioch. During his corre- 
spondence with Alexander, Innocent is dis- α.ν. 416. 
posed to attribute a subordinate primacy to Antioch, 
as the temporary See of St. Peter. Rome now chose 
to rest her title to supremacy on the succession from 
the great Apostle. Peter could hardly have passed 
through any see, without leaving behind him some 
inheritance of peculiar dignity; while Rome, as the 
scene of his permanent residence and martyrdom, 
claimed the undoubted succession to almost monarchi- 
cal supremacy. 

That which might have appeared the most fatal 
blow to Roman greatness, as dissolving the siege ana 
spell of Roman empire, the capture, the con- ee οἷ 
flagration, the plunder, the depopulation of “""* 
Rome by the barbarian Goths, tended directly to 
establish and strengthen the spiritual supremacy of 
Rome. It was pagan Rome, the Babylon of sensual- 
ity, pride, and idolatry which fell before the triumphant 
Alaric; the Goths were the instruments of divine 
vengeance against paganism, which lingered in this its 
last stronghold. Christianity hastened to disclaim all 
interest, all sympathy in the fate of the ‘harlot that 
sat on the seven hills.” Paganism might seem rashly 
to accept this desperate issue, girding itself for one 
final effort, and proclaiming, that as Rome had brought 
ruin on her own head by abandoning her gods, so her 
gods had forever abandoned the unfaithful capital. 
The eternal city was manifestly approaching one of 
the epochs in her eternity. Three times during the 
first ten years of the fifth century and of the pontif- 
icate of Innocent, the first time under Alaric, the 
second under Rhadagaisus, the third again under 


144 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IL. 


Alaric, the barbarians crossed the Alps with over- 
whelming forces. ‘Twice the valor and military abil- 
ities of one man, Stilicho, diverted the storm from 
400 το 408. the walls of Rome. In his first expedition 
Polientia.  Alaric, after his defeat at Pollentia,! endeay- 
ored to throw himself upon the capital. He was re- 
called by the skilful movements of Stilicho, to suffer 
a final discomfiture under the walls of Verona. The 
poet commemorates the victories of Stilicho, the tri- 
umph of Honorius in Rome for these victories. In 
the splendid verses on the ovation of Honorius, it is 
no wonder that Pope Innocent finds no place. Clau- 
dian maintains his invariable and total silence as to the 
existence of Christianity. From his royal mansion on 
the Palatine Honorius looks down on no more glorious 
sight than the temples of his ancestors, which crowd 
the Forum in their yet inviolable majesty ; the eye is 
dazzled and confounded with the blaze of their bronzed 
columns and their roofs of gold; and with their statues 
which studded the skies: they are the household gods 
of the emperor. That the emperor worshipped other 
gods, or was ruled by other priests, appears from no 
one word.2, The Jove of the Capitol might seem still 
the tutelar god of Rome. Claudian had wound up 
his poem on the Gothic war, in which he equals the 
1 Gibbon, c. xxx. 
2“ Tot circum delubra vyidet, tantisque Deorum 
Cingitur excubiis. Juvyat infra tecta Tonantis 
Cernere Tarpeia pendentes ruipe Gigantas, 
Czelatasque fores, mediisque volantia signa 
Nubibus, et densum stipantibus ethera templis 
Acies stupet igne metalli. 
Et circumfuso trepidans obtunditur auro. 


Agnoscisne tuos, Princeps venerande, Penates ? 57 
de VI. Cons. Hon. 48, 58. 


Compare on Claudian note in Hist. of Christianity. 


Cuar. 1. RHADAGAISUS —STILICHO. 145 


victory of Pollentia with that of Marius over the 
Cimbrians; he ends with that solemn admonition, 
“Let the frantic barbarians learn hence respect for 
Rome.” 

But three years after, the terrible Rhadagaisus, at 
the head of an enormous force of mingled barbarians, 
swept over the whole North of Italy, and encamped 
before the walls of Florence. Rhadagaisus was a 
pagan ; he sacrificed daily to some deity, whom the 
Latin writers call by the name of Jove. The party 
at Rome, attached to their ancient worship, are accused 
of having contemplated with more than secret joy the 
approach of, it might seem, the irresistible barbarian. 
They did this, notwithstanding his terrible threats 
that he would sacrifice the senate of Rome on the 
altars of the gods which delight in human blood. 
The common enmity to Christianity, according to St. 
Augustine, quenched the love of their country, their 
proud attachment to Rome. But God himself, by 
the unexpected discomfiture of Rhadagaisus, sv. 406. 
crushed their guilty hopes, and rescued Rome from 
the public restoration of paganism. 

The consummate generalship of Stilicho,’ by which 
he gradually enclosed the vast forces of Rhadagaisus 
among the mountains in the neighborhood of Florence, 
himself on the ridge of Fesule, till they died off by 
famine and disease, was utterly incomprehensible to 
his age. Christianity took to itself the whole glory 
of Stilicho, the relief of Florence, the dispersion and 
reduction to captivity of the barbaric forces, and the 
death of Rhadagaisus, who was ordered to summary 
execution. A vision of St. Ambrose had predicted 


1 Gibbon, loc. cit., will furnish the authorities. 
VOL. I. 10 


140 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IL. 


the relief of Florence, and nothing less than the imme- 
diate succor of God, or of his Apostles, could account 
for the unexpected victory: and this strong religious 
feeling no doubt mingled with the common infatuation 
which seized all parties. Rome, it was thought, with 
a feeble emperor at a distance, with few troops, and 
those mostly barbarians, was safe in the majesty of her 
name and the prescriptive awe of mankind. Christ, 
or her tutelar Apostles, who had revealed the discom- 
fiture of Rhadagaisus, had protected, and would to the 
end protect, Christian Rome against all pagan invaders, 
baffle the treasonable sympathy, and disperse the sacri- 
legious prayers, of those who, true to the ancient re- 
ligion, were false to the real greatness of Rome. So 
often as heathen forces should menace the temples, 
not of the Capitoline Jove, or those yet uncleansed 
from the pollutions of their idolatries, but those, if less 
splendid, more holy fanes protected by the relics of 
Apostles and Martyrs, Rome would witness, as she 
had already witnessed, the triumph of her Christian 
emperor, the consecration of the spoils of the defeated 
barbarians on the altars of St. Paul, St. Peter, and of 
Christ.1 

The sacrifice of Stilicho? to the dark intrigues of 
Pes the court of Ravenna was the last fatal sign 
of Stilicho. of this pride and security. Both Christian 
and pagan writers combine to load the memory of 
Stilicho with charges manifestly intended to exculpate 
the court of Honorius from the guilt and folly of his 


‘1 Paulinus in vit. Ambrosii, c. 50. Augustin. de Civ. Dei, v. 23. Orosius, 
‘vii. 37. p 

2Stilicho was married to Serena, the sister of Honorius. Honorius had 
married in succession Maria and Thermantia, the daughters of Stilicho. 


Cap. I. DEATH OF STILICHO. 147 


disgrace, and his surrender by a Christian bishop after 
he had sought, himself a Christian, sanctuary at the 
altar of the church of Ravenna, and his perfidious 
execution. The Christians accuse him of a design to 
depose the emperor, who was both his brother-in-law 
and his son-in-law, and to elevate his own heir Euche- 
rius to the Imperial throne. Eucherius, it is asserted, 
but with no proof, and with all probability against it, 
was a pagan; the public restoration of paganism, as 
the religion of the Empire, was to be the first act of 
the new dynasty.1. The ungrateful pagans seem to 
have been ignorant of this magnificent scheme in their 
favor ; they too brand Stilicho with the name of traitor, 
and ascribe to his perfidious dealings with Alaric the 
final ruin of Rome.? They hated him as the enemy, 
the despoiler of their religion; as having robbed the 
temples of their treasures, burned the Sibylline books, 
stripped from the doors of the Capitol the plates of 
gold. Stilicho knew the weakness as well as the 
strength of Rome; that may have been but wise and 
necessary policy, in order, by timely concession and 
tribute under the honorable name of boon or largess, 
to keep the formidable barbarian beyond the frontiers 
of Italy, which may have seemed treasonable degrada- 
tion to the haughty court, blind to its own impotence.? 


1 Orosius, vii. 38. 
2So Rutilius Numatianus, who hated Christianity — 


“Quo magis est facinus diri Stilichonis iniquum, 
Proditor areani qui fuit imperii. 
Romano generi dum nititur esse superstes, 
Crudelis summis miscuit ima furor. 
Dumque timet, quicquid se fecerat ante timeri, 
Immisit Latize barbara tela neci.”’ 
Rutil. Itin. ii. 41. 


8 Compare Gibbon, c. xxx. 


148 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IL 


The death of Stilicho was the signal for the reap- 


Alaric’s pearance of Alaric again in arms in the 
second 5 5 
invasion. centre of Italy. His pretext for this second 


invasion was the violation of the treaties entered into 
by Stilicho. At all events, the unanswerable testi- 
mony to the abilities of Stilicho, if not to his fidelity, 
is that which seemed to be the immediate, inevitable 
consequence of his disgrace and execution. . No sooner 
was Stilicho dead, than Rome lay open to the barba- 
rian conqueror. Unopposed, almost without a skir- 
mish, laughing to scorn the slow and inefficient prepa- 
rations of the emperor and of Olympius who ruled the 
emperor, and who had misguided him to the ruin of 
Stilicho, Alaric advanced from the Alps to the walls 
of Rome. The first act of defence adopted by the 
senate of Rome was the judicial murder of Serena, the 
widow of Stilicho. She was accused of a design to be- 
tray the city to the Goth. Both parties seem to have 
consented to this deed. The heathens remembered 
that when Theodosius the Great had struck the deadly 
blow against the rites and the temples of paganism, by 
prohibiting all public expenditure on heathen ceremo- 
a.».408. nies, Serena had stripped a costly necklace 
from the statue of Rhea, the most ancient and venera- 
ble of Rome’s goddesses, and_ herself ostentatiously 
wore the precious spoil ; that neck was now given up 
to strangulation, a righteous and appropriate punish- 
ment for her impiety. The historian seems to inti- 
mate ! that the Romans were surprised that the death 
of Serena produced no effect on the remorseless Goth. 
Biege of Rome. The siege of Rome was formed; the vast 
a.v.408. population, accustomed to live, the wealthy 


1 Zosimus — Sozomen, ix. 6. 


Cuap. I. ETRUSCAN DIVINERS. 149 


in luxury perhaps to no great extent moderated by 
Christianity, the poor by gratuitous distributions at 
the expense of the public or of the rich, to which 
Christian charity had now come in aid,! were suddenly 
reduced to the worst extremities of famine. The 
public distributions were diminished to one half, to one 
third. The heaps of dead bodies, which there wanted 
space to bury, produced a pestilence. In vain the 
Senate endeavored to negotiate an honorable capitula- 
tion. Alaric scorned alike their money, their despair, 
their pride. When they spoke of their immense pop- 
ulation, he burst out into laughter, — “The thicker 
the hay, the easier it is mown.” On his demand of 
an exorbitant ransom, the Senate humbly inquired, 
“‘ What, then, do you leave us?” ‘ Your lives!” 
replied the insulting Goth. 

During this first siege Innocent was in Rome. The 
strange story of the desperate proposition to deliver 
the city by the magical arts of certain Etrus- grusean 
can diviners, who had power, it was sup- ἴθ. 
posed, to call down and direct the lightnings of heaven, 
appears, in different forms, in the pagan and Christian 
historians.2_ Innocent himself is said, by the heathen 
Zosimus, to have assented to the idolatrous ceremony. 
If this be true, it is possible that the mind of the 
Christian Prelate may have been so entirely unhinged 
by the terrors of the siege and the dreadful sufferings 
of the people, that he may have yielded to any hope, 
however wild, of averting the ruin. It is possible, 


1 Leta, the wife of Gratian, and her mother, were distinguished by their 
abundant charities, which at least mitigated the sufferings of multitudes. 

2 Compare Hist. of Christianity, iii. 181. Zosimus, v. 41. Sozomen, 
ix. 6. 


150 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II 


though less probable, that he may have known or sup- 
posed the Etruscans to be possessed of some skilful, 
and in no way supernatural, means of producing ap- 
parent wonders,! which might awe the ignorant barba- 
rians, and of which the use might be justified by the 
dreadful crisis; and if these arts were thought super- 
natural, it was not for him to expose, at least for the 
present, the useful delusion. At all events, to judge 
the conduct of Innocent, we must throw ourselves 
completely back into the terror and affliction, the con- 
fusion and prostration of that disastrous time. The 
whole history is obscure and contradictory. The 
Christian writer asserts that the ceremony did take 
place, but that the Christians (he does not name Inno- 
cent) stood aloof from the profane and ineffectual rite. 
The heathen aver, that the Senate, after grave deliber- 
ation, refused to sanction its public performance, and 
that, in fact, it did not take place. The barbarian, at 
Capitulation. length, condescended to accept a ransom, in 
some proportion to the wealth of the city —5000 
pounds of gold, 30,000 of silver, four thousand silken 
robes, 3000 pieces of scarlet cloth, 3000 pounds of 
pepper. To make up the deficiency of the precious 
metals, the heathen temples, to the horror of that 
party, were despoiled; the time-honored statues of 
gods were melted to make up the amount demanded 
by the barbarian. The last fatal sign and omen of 
the departure of Roman greatness was, that the statue 
of Fortitude, or Virtue, was thrown into the common 
mass.” 


1See Eusebe Salverte, on the knowledge possessed by the ancients in 
conducting lightning. — Sciences Occultes. 
2 Αλλὰ καὶ ἐχώνευσάν τινα τῶν ἐκ χρυσοῦ καὶ ἀργύρου πεποιημένων, ὧν 


Cuap. I. CAPITULATION OF ROME. 151 


Alaric retired from Rome, his army increased by 
multitudes of slaves from the city and the neighbor- 
hood, who, it is said, to the number of 40,000, had 
found refuge in his camp. The infatuated pride, the 
insincerity, the treachery of the court of Ravenna, 
rendered impracticable all negotiations for peace. The 
minister Olympius, the chief agent in the assassination 
of Stilicho, has found favor, of which he seems to have 
been utterly unworthy, from Christian writers, on 
account of some letters addressed to him by St. Augus- 
tine. Even his fall produced no great change. Hono- 
rius, indeed, seems to have occupied his time at this 
crisis in framing edicts against Jews and heretics, and 
other decrees, as if for a peaceful and extensive empire. 
Under Olympius, he had promulgated the Imperial 
rescript, which deprived the heathen temples of their 
last revenue ; it was confiscated for the use of the de- 
vout soldiers. The statues of the gods were ordered 
to be thrown down; the temples in the cities were 
seized for public uses, others were to be destroyed ; the 
banquets (epulz) prohibited! But he was compelled 
to repeal a law which deprived him of the services of 
all heathens. Generides, a valiant and able pagan, 
was permitted to resume the military belt, and to take 
the command of part of the Imperial forces. A sec- 
ond time Alaric appeared before Rome. He seized 
upon the port of Ostia, and this cut off at once almost 


ἣν καὶ τὸ τῆς ἀνδρίας, ἦν καλοῦσι "Ρωμαῖοι Οὐιρτούτεμ' οὗπερ διαφϑαρέντος, 
ὅσα τῆς ἀνδρίας ἦν. καὶ ἀρετῆς παρὰ Ῥωμαίοις ἀπέσβη. . . . Zosimus, 
v. 41. 

! This law is dated the 17th of the calends of December, 408. Templo- 
rum detrahantur annone et rem annonariam jubent, expensis devotissimo- 
rum militum profuture, ὅσο. Compare Beugnot, ii. p. 49, et seqg. Cod 
Theodos. xvi. 10, 19. 


152 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


all the supplies of the city.1. Rome opened her gates, 


Attalus and Alaric set up a pageant emperor, Attalus, 
mperor. Ν : 
a.v.409. asa rival to the emperor in Ravenna. The 


Christians beheld the elevation of Attalus, a pagan, 
who submitted to Arian baptism, but openly attempted 
to restore the party of paganism, with undisguised 
aversion. Lampadius, the Senator, at the head of 
this party, was Preetorian Prefect, Tertullus Consul. 
Tertullus boldly declared that to the Consulate he 
should add the High Priesthood.2 The Pagan histo- 
rian describes the universal joy of Rome at the eleva- 
tion of such just and noble magistrates. The Chris- 
tians® looked eagerly to the court of Ravenna.  Alaric 
was encamped between the Christian and pagan cities, 
between Ravenna and Rome. The feeble government 
of Attalus had to encounter an enemy even more for- 
midable than the Christians. The Count Heraclian 
closed the ports of Africa: a famine even more ter- 
rible than during the former siege, and even that had 
reduced men to the most loathsome and abominable 
food, afflicted the enfeebled and diminished population. 
A strange and revolting anecdote illustrates at once 
Roman manners and this dire calamity. The Romans, 
though they had no bread, had still their Circensian 
games. In the midst of the excitement, the ears of 
the Emperor were assailed with a wild cry — Fix the 
tariff for human flesh.t All these calamities the Chris- 
tians ascribed to the restoration of heathen rites. 


1 As usual, the dealers in grain were accused of hoarding their stores, in 
order to possess themselves of all the remaining wealth of the city. 

2 Sozom. ix. 9. 3 Oros. vii. 42. 

4 Zosimus inserts the words in Latin—Pone pretium carni humane. 
The price of bread, as of all other articles, was fixed by the government. 
Zosimus, vi. 11. 


CHar. I. THIRD SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF ROME. 153 


Attalus, at the word of his Gothic master, descended 
from his throne, and sank back to his former gyi. siege 
insignificance. But Rome, when Alaric ap- %®°™ 
peared a third time under its walls, prepared to close 
her gates, and to act on the defensive (the Emperor 
Honorius had received the scanty succor of six cohorts 
from the East, and Rome was in frantic hope of rescue 
from Ravenna). Weakness or treachery bafiled this 
desperate, if courageous, determination. At the dead 
of night, the Salarian gate was opened; the morning 
beheld Rome in the possession of the conqueror ; but 
the conqueror, though a barbarian and a heretic, was 
a Christian. Over the fall of Rome, history might 
seem, in horror, to have dropped a veil. 

However the first appalling intelligence of this event 
shook the Roman world to the centre, and capture of 
the fearful scene of pillage, violation, and de- *)"sio, 
struction by fire and sword, was imagined to “% Ὁ 
surpass in its horrors everything recorded in profane or 
sacred history, yet the shock passed away ; and Rome 
quietly assumed her second, her Christian empire. 
When the first stunning tidings of the fall of the Im- 
perial City reached Jerome in his retirement in Pales- 
tine, even some time after, when he had held inter- 
course with fugitives from Rome, the capture represents 
itself to his vivid fancy as one dark and terrific mass 
of havoc and ruin. It was accompanied by no mitigat- 
ing or relieving circumstances ; by none of those strik- 
ing incidents of Christian piety and mercy, which, in 


1 Rome may be said to have fallen without an historian. Her ruin was 
indeed described by the Greek Zosimus, but his sixth book is lost. Orosius 
cannot be dignified by the name—his work is but a summary of Augus- 
tine’s City of God. 


154 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


the pages of Augustine and Orosius, are thrown across 
the general gloom. The sudden horror, as well as con- 
sternation, joined with the gloomy temperament of Je- 
rome to deepen the darkness of the scene.’ He asserts 
that the famine had already so thinned the population, 
that few remained in the city to be taken. He heaps 
together the awful passages in the Old Testament, on 
the capture of Jerusalem and other eastern cities, and 
the noble lines of Virgil on the sack of Troy, as but 
feebly descriptive of the night in which fell the Moab 
of the West. Nor can it be supposed that, whatever 
the disposition or even the orders of Alaric, the capture 
of a city so wealthy, so luxurious, so populous, by a 
vast and ill-disciplined host of barbarians, at least at 
their first irruption, could be more than a wild tumult 
of fury, license, plunder, bloodshed, and conflagration. 
Multitudes of that host, no doubt, still held their old 
warlike Teutonic faith. In those who were called 
Christians the ferocity of the triumphant soldier was 
hardly mitigated by the softening influences of the Gos- 
pel. The forty thousand slaves said to have joined the 
army of Alaric, brought their revenge and their local 
and personal knowledge of the richest palaces, and of 
the most opulent families, which would furnish the most 
attractive victims to lust or to pillage. But the calam- 
ities that involved in ruin almost the whole pagan pop- 
ulation and the palaces of the ancient families, which 

1 Terribilis de Occidente rumor affertur . . . .— Heret vox et singultus 
intercipiunt verba dictantis. Capitur urbs, que totum cepit orbem, ime 
fame perit, antequam gladio, et vix pauci, qui caperentur, inventi sunt. 
Epist. xciv. Marcelle Epitaph. Yet, in the same letter, he writes to Mar- 
cella — Sit mihi fas audita loqui; imo a sanctis viris visa narrare, qui inter- 
fuere presentes. — Ibid. 


Nocte Moab capta est, nocte cecidit murus ejus. Hieronym. i. 121, ad 
Principiam. 


Cuar. I. INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 155 


still adhered to their ancestral gods, are lost in oblivion ; 
while Christianity has boastfully, or gratefully, pre- 
served those exceptional incidents, in which through her 
influence, and in her behalf, the common disaster was 
rebuked, checked, mitigated. The last feeble murmurs 
of paganism arraigned Christianity as the pyrinction 
cause of the desertion of the city by her an- %P*s*s™- 
cient and mighty gods, and, therefore, of her inevitable 
fate. Christianity was now so completely the mistress 
of the human mind, as to assert that it was, indeed, the 
power of her God—her justly provoked and right- 
eously avenging God — which had brought to its final 
close the Gentile sovereignty of Rome. Nothing pagan 
had escaped, but that which found shelter under Chris- 
tianity. For Alaric, though an Arian, was’ a Christian. 
His conduct was strongly contrasted with what might 
have been feared from the heathen Rhadagaisus, if God 
had abandoned Rome to his fury. The Goth had been 
throughout under the awful control of Christianity.! 
He is said to have issued ἃ proclamation, tpguence of 
which, while it abandoned the guilty and lux- CPs": 
urious city to plunder, commanded regard for human 
life ; and especially the most religious respect fer the 
Churches of the Apostles. In obedience to these com- 


1 The great Christian argument is summed up in this noble passage cf 
Augustine: — 

Quicquid igitur vastationis, trucidationis, depredationis, concremationis, 
afflictionis in ist& recentissim& Roman& clade commissum est: facit hoc 
consuetudo bellorum. Quod autem more novo factum est, quod inusitata 
rerum facie immanitas barbara tam mitis apparuit, ut amplissime basilica 
implendx populo, cui parceretur, eligerentur et decernerentur, ubi nemo 
feriretur, unde nemo raperetur, quo liberandi multi a miserantibus hostibus 
ducerentur, unde captivandi nulli, nee a crudelibus hostibus abducerentur: 
hee Christi nomini, hoe Christiano tempori tribuendum, quisquis non videt, 
cecus; quisquis videt, nec laudat, ingratus; quisquis laudanti reluctatur, 
insanus est. Augustin. Tract. de excid. Urbis. 


156 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


mands, and under the especial control of the Almighty, 
among the smoking ruins, the plundered houses and 
temples, the families desolated by the sword, or by out- 
rages worse than death, the Christian edifices alone 
commanded at least some reverence and security. 
Everywhere else was promiscuous massacre, peace and 
safety alone in the churches. The heathens them- 
selves fled to these, the only places of refuge; they 
took shelter, in their terror and despair, under the al- 
tars which they despised or hated. The more solid 
and majestic structures of paganism would, no doubt, 
defy the injuries which might be wrought by barbari- 
ans, more intent on plunder than destruction, but their 
most hallowed sanctuaries were violated. Before the 
Christian Churches alone rapacity, and lust, and cru- 
elty were arrested, and stood abashed. When the con- 
flagration raged, as it did in some parts of the city, 
amid private houses, palaces, or temples, some of the 
sacred edifices of the Christians might be enveloped 
in the flames. But the more important churches — 
those of St. Peter and St. Paul —were respected by 
the spreading fires, as well as by the infuriated soldiery.? 
There the obedient sword of the conqueror paused in 
its work of death, and even his cupidity was overawed.? 
Of all the temple treasuries, the public or private 
hoards of precious metals, which the owners were com- 
pelled to betray by the most excruciating tortures, the 
jewels, the plate, the spoils of centuries of conquest, 
the accumulated plunder of provinces, only the sacred 

1 Augustin. de Civ. Dei, ii. 1. a. 7. Yet this was unknown to Jerome. 
He says, In cineres ac favillas sacra quondam ecclesiz conciderunt. Epist. 
ΠΑ Pater the remote and eyen extramural situation of these churches 
night tend to their security. 


» 


Onap. I. PROTECTION OF FEMALES. 157 


vessels and ornaments of Christian worship remained 
inviolate. It was said that sacred vessels found with- 
out the precincts of the Church were borne with rev- 
erential decency into the sanctuary. Of this Orosius 
relates a remarkable and particular history. A fierce 
soldier entered in quest of plunder into the dwelling of 
an aged Christian virgin. He demanded, in courteous 
terms, the surrender of her treasures. She exposed to 
his view many vessels of gold, of great size, weight, 
and beauty ; vessels of which the soldier knew neither 
the use nor the name. ‘ These,” she said, ‘are the 
property of the Apostle St. Peter. Take them, if you 
dare, and answer for your act to God. A defenceless 
woman, I cannot protect them from your violence ; my 
soul, therefore, is free from sin.” The soldier stood 
awe-struck. A message was sent to Alaric, and orders 
were instantly despatched that the virgin and her holy 
treasures should be safely conducted to the Church of 
the Apostle. The procession (for the virgin’s dwelling 
was far distant from the Church) was led through the 
long and wondering streets. The people broke out 
into hymns of adoration, and amid the tumult of dis- 
order and ruin, the tranquil pomp pursued its course ; 
the name of Christ rose swelling above the wild disso- 
nance of the captured city. Even more lawless pas- 
sions yielded to the holy control. In the Ὁ oy ction of 
loathsome scenes of violation, the chastity of mes. 
Christian virgins alone —at least, in some instances — 
found respect from the lustful barbarian.'. There is 
1 Demetrias escaped, according to St. Jerome. Dudum inter barbaras 
tremuisti manus; avie et matris sinu et palliis tegebaris. Vidisti te capti- 
vain, et pudicitiam tuam non tue potestatis: horruisti truces hostium vul- 


tus: raptas virgines Dei gemitu tacite conspexisti. Hieronym. Epist. 8 
Compare Augustin. de Civ. Dei, i. 16. 


158 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book II. 


an instance of a beautiful virgin who thus preserved 
her honor. Indignant at her resistance, the young 
soldier into whose power she had fallen, drew his sword 
and slightly wounded her. Though bleeding, she 
calmly held out her neck to the stroke of death. 
The soldier, though an Arian, observes the Catholic 
writer, could not but admire her fidelity to Christ her 
spouse. He led her to the Church, and, with a gift of 
six pounds of gold, surrendered her to those who were 
on guard over the sanctuary.1 Marcella, the friend of 
Jerome, did not escape so easily the only dangers to 
which, on account of her age, she was exposed. As 
he had heard from eye-witnesses of the scene, it was 
not till she had been beaten and scourged,? to compel 
her to reveal her secret treasures, treasures long before 
expended in charity, that her admirable courage and 
patience enforced the respect of the spoiler, and in- 
duced him to lead her to the asylum of the Church 
of St. Paul.? 


1 Sozomen, H. E. ix. 10. 

2 Cesam fustibus flagellisque, aiunt te non sensisse tormenta. Hieronym. 
Epist. loc. cit. 

3 The most extraordinary passage relating to the sack of Rome is in St. 
Jerome’s next letter. All the horrors on which he has dwelt,—the capture 
of Rome, the massacre, rape, pillage, and conflagration, —are not merely 
mitigated, but amply compensated to Rome and to the world by the profes- 
sion of virginity made by Demetrias. It was as great a triumph as the 
discomfiture of the Gothic army would have been. We can neither under- 
stand Jerome nor his age without considering these strange sentences. 
Her vows of chastity were against the wishes of her whole family; the 
greater, therefore, their merit. Hence ‘“invenisse eam quod prestaret gen- 
eri, quod Romane urbis cineres mitigaret.” After describing the rejoicing 
of Africa, he proceeds: Tune lugubres vestes Italia mutavit, et semirute 
urbis Rome menia, pristinum in parte recepere fulgorem, propitium sibi ex- 
istimantes Deum, sic alumne conversione perfectd. Putares extinctam Go- 
thorum manum, et colluviem perfugarum et servorum, Domini desuper 
intonantis fulmine cecidisse. Non sic post Trebiam, Thrasymenum, et 
Cannas, in quibus locis Romanorum exercituum cesa sunt millia, Marcelli 


Crap. I. INNOCENT ABSENT FROM ROME. 159 


Innocent was happily absent from Rome during the 

last siege and sack of the city. After the mnocent 
ἘΞ ἕ absent from 

second retreat of Alaric from before the walls, Rome. 
he had accompanied a deputation to Ravenna, to seek, 
and seek in vain, from the powerless Emperor, some 
protection for the capital. He did not return, and the 
fate of the city was left to the resolutions of 4». 409. 
the Senate. He thus escaped the horrors of that fatal 
night, and the three days’ pillage of the city. If his 
presence did not contribute to the comparative security 
of the Christians, neither did his holy person endure 
the peril of exposure to insult, or the blind and undis- 
criminating fury of a heathen soldiery. Innocent re- 
turned to a city, if im some parts ruined and desolate, 
now entirely Christian ; the ancient religion was buried 
under the ruins. Many of the noblest families of Rome 
were reduced to slavery by the Goths ; some had antici- 
pated the capture of the city by a shameful flight : 
many more abandoned forever their doomed and hope- 
less country. Alaric and his host, satiated with three 
days’ plunder, at the end of six days broke up from 
Rome to ravage the rich and defenceless cities of south- 
ern Italy. The estates, which had so long maintained 
the enormous luxury of the Roman patricians, were 


primum apud Nolam prelio, se populus Romanus erexit, &c. ὅσο. Jerome 
has some notion that he is surpassing Tully and Demosthenes, whose elo- 
quence would be unequal to this wonderful event. Compare with this let- 
ter the Epistle addressed to the same Demetrias, there is little doubt, by no 
less a person than the heresiarch Pelagius. Pelagius, in the spirit of his 
age, is an admirer of virginity. But throughout the Epistle there is a sin- 
gular calmness as well as elegance of style, which forcibly contrasts with 
the passionate hyperboles of Jerome. Pelagius, too, alludes to the sack of 
Rome, and urges it as an image of the last day. Eadem omnibus imago 
mortis, nisi quia magis eam timebant illi, quibus fuerat vita jucundior. Si 
ita mortales timemus hostes, et humanam manum, cum clangore terribili 
tuba intonare de cxlo ceperit, &c. In Oper. Hieronym. v. p. 29. 


100 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


ravaged or confiscated: whole families swept away into 
bondage. Without the city, as within, almost all that 
remained of eminent and famous names, the ancestral 
houses, which kept up the tradition of the glory of the 
republic, or the wealth of the Empire, sank into ob- 
scurity or total oblivion. The fugitives from Rome 
were found in all parts of the world,! and among these 
no doubt were almost all the more distinguished hea- 
thens,2. who, no longer combining into a powerful 
party, no longer held together by the presence of the 
old ancestral temples, or by the household gods of their 
race and family, reduced to poor and insignificant out- 
Dispersion of casts from descendants and representatives of 
ag ay: the noblest houses in Rome, gradually melted 
into the general Christian population of the empire. 
Those, whom Jerome beheld at Bethlehem, were doubt- 
less Christians ; but the whole coasts, not only of Italy 
and its islands, of Africa, Egypt, and the East, swarmed 
with these unfortunate exiles. Carthage was full of 
those who, to the great indignation of Augustine, not- 
withstanding this visible sign of Almighty wrath, 
crowded the theatres, and raised turbulent factions con- 
cerning rival actors ; they carried with them no doubt, 
and readily promulgated that hostile sentiment towards 
Christianity, which attributed all the calamities of the 


1 Nulla est regio, que non exules Romanos habeat. — Hieronym. Epist. 
xeviii. 

2 Compare Prefat. ad Ezekiel. 

3 Honorius, in the mean time, was still issuing sanguinary edicts against 
heretics. Oraculo penitus remoto, quo ad ritus suos heretice superstitionis 
obrepserant, sciant omnes sancte legis inimici, plectendos se pena et pro- 
scriptionis et sanguinis, si ultra convenire per publicum execranda sceleris 
sui temeritate tentaverint. To this law, addressed to Heraclian, count of 
Africa, (Cod. Theodos. c. 51, de Hxret.) Baronius ascribes the speedy de- 
liverance of the city from Alaric, so highly was it approved by God! Sub 
Ann. 410. ; 


Cuap. I. RESTORATION OF ROME. 161 


times, consummated in the sack of Rome, to the new 
religion. It was this last desperate remonstrance of 
paganism which called forth Augustine’s City of God, 
and the brief and more lively perhaps, but meagre and 
superficial work of Orosius. Babylon has fallen, and 
fallen forever; the City of God, at least the centre 
and stronghold of the City of God, is in Christian 
Rome. 

Nor did Innocent return to rule over a desert. The 
wonder, which is expressed at the rapid res- restoration 
toration of Rome, shows that the general con- % “°™* 
sternation and awe, at the tidings of the capture, had 
greatly exaggerated the amount both of damage and 
of depopulation. Some of the palaces of the nobles, 
who had fled from the city, or perished in the siege, 
may have remained in ruins; above all the temples, 
now without funds to repair them from their confiscated 
estates, from the alienated government, or from the 
munificence of wealthy worshippers, would be left ex- 
posed to every casual injury, and fall into irremediable 
dilapidation, unless seized and appropriated to its own 
uses by the triumphant faith. Now probably began the 
slow conversion of the heathen fanes into Christian 
churches.! It took many more sieges, many more 
irruptions of barbaric conquerors, to destroy the 
works of centuries in the capital of the world’s wealth 
and power. If deserted temples were left to decay, 
churches rose ; palaces found new lords ; the humbler 
buildings, which are for the most part the prey of ruin 
and conflagration, are speedily repaired; it is hardly 


1%In Rome this was rare, till the late conversion of the Pantheon into a 
Christian church. Few churches stand even on the sites of ancient temples. 
The Basilica seems to have been preferred for Christian worship. 


VOL. I. 11 


102 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


less labor to demolish than to build solid, massy and 
substantial habitations; and fire, which probably did 
not rage to any great extent, was the only destructive 
agent which, during Alaric’s occupation, endangered 
the grandeur or majesty of the city. 

If Christian Rome rose thus out of the ruin of the 
Greatness Pagan city, the Bishop of Rome rose in pro- 
of Bishop. portionate grandeur above the wreck of the 
old institutions and scattered society. Saved, as 
doubtless it seemed, by the especial protection of 
God from all participation, even from the sight of 
this tremendous, this ignominious disaster, according 
to the phrase of the times, as Lot out of the fires 
of Sodom,! he alone could lift up his head, if with 
αν. 411. sorrow without shame. MHonorius hid him- 
self in Ravenna, nor did the Emperor ever again, 
for any long time, make his residence at Rome. 
With the religion expired all the venerable titles of 
the religion, the Great High Priests and Flamens, 
the Auspices and Augurs. On the Pontifical throne 
sat the Bishop of Rome, awaiting the time when 
he should ascend also the Imperial throne; or, at 
least, if without the name, possess the substance of 
the Imperial power, and stand almost as much above 
the shadowy form of the old republican dignities, 
which still retained their titles and some municipal 
authority, as the Czsars themselves. The capture 
of Rome by Alaric was one of the great steps by 
which the Pope arose to his plenitude of power. 
There could be no question that from this time the 
greatest man in Rome was the Pope; he alone was 
invested with permanent and real power; he alone 


1 Orosius. 


Crap. I. GREATNESS OF BISHOP. 163 


possessed all the attributes of supremacy, the rever- 
ence, it was his own fault, if not the love of the 
people. He had a sacred indefeasible title ; authority 
unlimited, because undefined; wealth, which none 
dare to usurp, which multitudes lavishly contributed 
to increase by free-will offerings ; he is, in one sense, 
a Cesar, whose apotheosis has taken place in his life- 
time, environed by his Preetorian guards, his eccle- 
siastics, on whose fidelity and obedience he may, when 
once seated on the throne, implicitly rely; whose 
edicts are gradually received as law; and who has 
his spiritual Preetors and Proconsuls in Hanes every 


part of Western Christendom. 
yo 


104 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I. 


CHAPTER II. 


PELAGIANISM. 


Tue Pelagian question agitated the West during the 
Pelagian later years of Innocent’s pontificate. This 
controversy: has been the great interminable controversy 
of Latin, of more than Latin, of all Western Chris- 
tianity. The nature of the Godhead and of the 
Christ was the problem of the speculative East: 
that of man, his state after the fall, the freedom 
or bondage of his will, the motive principle of his 
actions, that of the more active West. The East 
might seem to dismiss this whole dispute with almost 
contemptuous indifference. ‘Though Pelagius himself, 
and his follower Celestius, visited Palestine and ob- 
tained the suffrages of a provincial council in their 
favor; though from his cell near Bethlehem, Jerome 
mingled in the fray with all his native violence, — 
there the controversy died rapidly away, leaving hard- 
ly a record in Grecian theology, none whatever in 
Greek ecclesiastical history.! 

So completely, however, throughout the Roman 
Pelagivs. world is Christianity now an important part 
of human affairs, as to become a means of intercourse 
and communication between the remotest provinces. 


1 Walch has observed, that none of the Greek historians, neither Socra- 
tes, Sozomen nor Theodoret notice the Pelagian controversy. Ketzer- 
Geschichte, iv. p. 531. 


Cuar. IT. PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. ᾿ 165 


On the one hand new, and, as they are esteemed, 
heretical opinions are propagated, usually by their 
authors or by their partisans, from the most distant 
yuarters, and so spread throughout Christendom ; on 
the other hand, the Christian world is leagued together 
in every part to suppress these proscribed opinions. 
A Briton, Pelagius, by some accounts two Britons, 
Pelagius and Celestius, leave their home at the ex- 
tremity of the known earth, perhaps the borders of 
Wales, the uttermost part of Britain, to disturb the 
whole Christian world. Pelagius is said to have been 
a monk, and though no doubt bound by vows of celi- 
bacy, yet was under the discipline of no community. 
He arrives in Rome, from Rome he passes to Africa, 
from Africa to Palestine. Everywhere he preaches 
his doctrines, obtains proselytes, or is opposed by in- 
flexible adversaries. The fervid religion of the Afri- 
can Churches repudiated with one voice the colder 
and more philosophic reasonings of Pelagius:? they 
submitted to the ascendency of Augustine, and threw 
themselves into his views with all their unextinguish- 
able ardor. 

But in the East the glowing writings of Augustine 
were not understood, probably not known :" poleuann 
his predestinarian notions never seem to have "° East, 
been congenial to the Christianity of the Greeks. In 
Palestine, however, Pelagius was encountered by two 
implacable adversaries, Heros and Lazarus, bishops of 


1 My history of the earlier period of Christianity entered into the 
general character of Pelagianism, especially as connected with the char- 
acter and writings of Augustine. I consider it at present chiefly in its 
relation to Latin Christianity. — Hist. of Christianity, iii. pp. 264, 270. 

2 Except by Jerome, who, however, received his writings irregularly and 
with murh delay.— The ordinary correspondence between the provinces 


166 ᾿ LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


Gaul.! It is probable indeed, that the persecution was 
to be traced to the cell of Jerome,?’ with whose ve- 
hement and superstitious temperament his doctrines 
clashed as violently as with those of Augustine. 
Council op = elagius was arraigned before a synod of 
Piospolis. ~~ fourteen prelates, at Diospolis (the ancient 
Lydda), and, to the astonishment and discomfiture 
of his adversaries, solemnly acquitted of all hereti- 
cal tenets. It is asserted that the fathers of Dios- 
polis were imposed upon by the subtle and plausible 
dialectics of Pelagius. Considering, indeed, that his 
accusers, the Gallic bishops (neither of whom per- 
sonally appeared), and his third adversary, Orosius, 
the friend and disciple of Augustine, only spoke Latin, 
that the Palestinian bishops only understood Greek 


seems now to have been slow and precarious. Nothing, writes Augus- 
tine to Jerome, grieves me so much as your distance from me— “ut 
vix possim meas dare, vel recipere tuas litteras, per intervalla non 
dierum non mensium, sed aliquot annorum.— August. Epist. xxviii. 
Were any of his works translated into Greek? 

1 Orosius too was in Palestine, it should seem, in search of relics. He 
had the good fortune to carry off the body of the protomartyr St. Stephen. 
Compare Baronius, sub ann. 

2 The letter to Demetrias, in the works of St. Jerome, seems admitted to 
be a genuine writing of Pelagius. That both Pelagius and his antagonist 
Jerome should have addressed an epistle to the same Demetrias suggests 
the suspicion of some strong personal rivalry. They were striving, as it 
were, for the command of this distinguished and still probably wealthy 
female. 

The whole tenor of the letter of Pelagius confirms the position, that the 
opinions of Pelagius had no connection with monastic enthusiasm, and did 
not arise out of that pride “of good works” which may belong to the 
consciousness of extraordinary austerities. (Compare Neander, Christliche 
Kirche.) Pelagius arrives at his conclusions by a calm, it might seem 
cold, philosophy. Excepting as to the praise of virginity, the greater 
part of the letter might have been written by an ancient Academic, or by 
a modern metaphysical inquirer. Jerome traces the origin of Pelagianism 
to the Greek, particularly the Stoic philosophy. He quotes Tertullian’s 
saying, Philosophi, patriarch hereticoruam.—Hieronym Epist. ad Ctesi- 
phont. 


Cunap. Π. PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 167 


(perhaps imperfectly any language but their own ver- 
nacular Syrian), and that Pelagius had the command 
of both languages; that these questions, which de- 
manded the most exquisite nicety of expression and 
the strictest accuracy of definition, must have been 
carried on by the clumsy means of interpreters, — the 
council of Diospolis, to the dispassionate inquirer, can- 
not carry much weight. The usual consequences of 
religious controversies in those days, and in those 
regions, were not slow to appear. Jerome was at- 
tacked in his retirement, his disciples maltreated by 
their triumphant adversaries. Pelagius himself seems 
entirely exempted from any concurrence in these law- 
less proceedings; but his fanatic followers (and even 
his calm tenets in the East could for once kindle 
fanaticism) are accused of perpetrating every crime, 
pillage, murder, conflagration, on the peaceful disci- 
ples of Jerome, especially on some of the noble 
Roman ladies who shared his solitude.? 

While ignorance, or indifference, or chance, or per- 
sonal hostility to the asserters of anti-Pelagian opinions 


1Innocent Epist. ad Aurel. et ad Johannem, Episcop. Hierosolym. 
These revengeful violences against Jerome appear to me better evidence 
that he was at least supposed to be the head of the faction opposed to 
Pelagius, than the reasons alleged by P. Daniel, Hist. du Concile de Pales- 
tine, and Walch, p. 398. The strong expressions as to these acts are from 
Innocent’s letter. Direptiones, cades, incendia, omne facinus extreme 
dementix, generosissime sancte virgines deploraverunt in locis ecclesix 
tux perpetrasse diabolum, nomen enim hominis causamque reticuerunt. — 
Apud Labbe, Concil., ii. p. 1815. If the odious Pelagius had been the man, 
they would hardly have suppressed his name. And it must be acknowl- 
edged that Jerome suffered only the natural results of his own principles. 
In his third dialogue against the Pelagians he introduces their advocate as 
scarcely daring to speak out, lest he should be stoned: Statim in me populo- 
rum lapides conjicias, et quem viribus non potes, voluntate interficias. To 
this the Catholic rejoins, Ile hereticum interficit, qui hereticum esse 
patitur. — Hieronym. Oper., iv. 2. p. 544. 


168 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


decided the question in the East, the West demanded 
a more solemn and authoritative adjudication on this 
absorbing controversy. By the decrees of the Council 
of Diospolis, Africa and the East were at direct issue ; 
and where should the Africans seek the arbiter, or 
the powerful defender of their opinions, but at Rome ? 
Constantinople, and Alexandria, and Antioch, took no 
interest in these questions, or were occupied, especially 
the two former, by their own religious and_ political 
quarrels. The African Church, when such a cause 
was on the issue, stood not on her independence. As 
a Western monk, Pelagius was amenable, in some 
degree, to the patriarchal authority of the Bishop of 
Rome. Both parties seemed at least to acquiesce in 
the appeal to Innocent: the event could not be doubt- 
ful in such an age and before the representative of 
Latin Christianity. 

All great divergences of religion, where men are 
origin of -Teally religious (and this seems acknowl- 
controversy. edged as to Pelagius himself, and still more 
as to some of his semi-Pelagian followers, Julianus 
of Eclana and the Monastic Cassian), arise from the 
undue dominance of some principle or element in our 
religious nature. This controversy was in truth the 
strife between two such innate principles, which phi- 
losophy despairs of reconciling, on which the New 
Testament has not pronounced with clearness or pre- 
cision. The religious sentiment, which ever assumes 
to itself the exclusive name and authority of religion, 
is not content without feeling, or at least supposing 
itself to feel, the direct, immediate agency of God 
upon the soul of man. This seems inseparable from 
the divine Sovereignty, even from Providential gov- 


Onap. Π. PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 169 


ernment, which it looks like impiety to limit, and of 
which it is hard to conceive the self-limitation.’ Must 
not God’s grace, of its nature, be irresistible? What 
can bound or fetter Omnipotence? This seems the 
first principle admitted in prayer, in all intercourse 
between the soul of man and the Infinite: it is the 
life-spring of religious enthusiasm, the vital energy, 
not of fanaticism only, but of zeal.2 On the other 
hand, there is an equally intuitive consciousness (and 
out of consciousness grows all our knowledge of these 
things) of the freedom, or self-determining power of 
the human will. On this depends all morality, and 
the sense of human responsibility ; all conception, ex- 
cept that which is unreasoning and instinctive, of the 
divine justice and mercy. This is the problem of 
philosophy ; the degree of subservience in the human 
will to influences external to itself, and in no way 
self-originated or self-controlled, and to its inward 
selfdetermining power.? In Christianity it involved 
not merely the metaphysic nature, but the whole bib- 
lical history of man; the fall, and the sin inherited 
by the race of Adam; the redemption of Christ, 
and the righteousness communicated to mankind by 
Christ. 

Pelagius came too early for any calm consideration 
of his doctrines, or any attempt to reconcile the diffi- 
culties which he suggested, with the sacred writings. 


1 The absolute abandonment of free will seems the highest point of true 
devotion. Prosper thus writes of Augustine: — 
Et dum nulla sibi tribuit bona, fit Deus illi 
Omnia, et in sancto regnat Sapientia templo. 
2 Compare this argument in another form, Hist. of Christianity, iii. p. 
267. 
8 Edwards on the Will throughout, which on this point coincides with 
the philosophy of Hume 


1τὸ LATIN CHRISTIANITY. ο΄ Boox IL 


In his age the religious sentiment was at its height, 
and to the religious sentiment that system was true 
which brought the soul most strongly and imme- 
diately under divine agency. ΤῸ substitute a law 
for that direct agency, to interpose in any way be- 
tween the Spirit of God and the spirit of man, was 
impiety, blasphemy, a degradation of God and of his 
sole sovereignty. This sentiment was at its height 
in Western Christendom. In no part had it grown 
to a passion so overwhelming as in Africa, in no 
African mind to such absorbing energy as in that of 
Augustine. 

Augustine, after the death of Ambrose, was the 
st. Augus one great authority in Latin Theology: 
ia from him was now anxiously expected, if 
it had not appeared, the great work which was to 
silence the last desperate remonstrances of Paganism, 
the City of Godt His Confessions had become at 
once the manual of passionate devotion, and the his- 
tory of the internal struggle of sin and grace in the 
soul of man. Augustine had maintained great in- 
fluence at the court of Ravenna: of the ministers 
of Honorius some were his personal friends, others 
courted his correspondence. Africa, the only gran- 
ary, held the power of life and death over Italy: 
and political and religious interests were now insepa- 
rably moulded together. But it was probably not so 
much either the authority or the influence of Augus- 
tine, which swayed the mind of Innocent to establish 
the Augustinian theology as the theory of Western 
Christianity ; it was rather its full coincidence with 
his own views of Christian truth. 


1 On the City of God compare Hist. of Christianity, iii. p. 279, 282. 


Crap. II. ST. AUGUSTINE. 111: 


Augustinianism was not merely the expression of 
the universal Christianity of the age as administering 
to, as being in itself the more full, fervent, continuous 
excitement of the religious sentiment, it was also closely 
allied with the two great characteristic tendencies of 
Latin Christianity. 

Latin Christianity, in its strong sacerdotal system, in 
its rigid and exclusive theory of the church, tatin 

° Cer Christianity 
at once admitted and mitigated the more anti-Pelagian. 
repulsive parts of the Augustinian theology. Pre- 
destinarianism itself, to those at least within the pale, 
lost much of its awful terrors. The Church was the 
predestined assemblage of those to whom Causes. 
and to whom alone, salvation was possible; the 
Church scrupled not to surrender the rest of man- 
kind to that inexorable damnation entailed upon the 
human race by the sin of their first parents. As the 
Church, by the jealous exclusion of all heretics, drew 
around itself a narrower circle; this startling limita- 
tion of the divine mercies was compensated by the 
great extension of its borders, which now compre- 
hended all other baptized Christians. The only point 
in this theory at which human nature uttered a feeble 
remonstrance! was the abandonment of infants, who 
never knew the distinction between good and evil, to 
eternal fires. The heart of Augustine wrung from 
his reluctant reason, which trembled at its own in- 


1 Julianus of Eclana put well the insuperable difficulty which has con- 
stantly revolted the human mind, when not under the spell of some ab- 
sorbing religious excitement, against the extreme theory of Augustine and 
of Calvin. Deus, ais, ipse qui commendat caritatem suam in nobis, qui 
dilexit nos, et filio suo non pepercit, sed pro nobis illum tradidit, ipse sic 
judicat, ipse est nascentium persecutor, ipse pro mala voluntate eternis 
ignibus parvulos tradit, quos nec bonam nec malam voluntatem scit habere 


112 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. ; Boox II. 


consistency, a milder damnation in their favor. But 
some of his more remorseless disciples disclaimed the 
illogical softness of their master.1 

Through the Church alone, and so through the 
Saceraotaa hierarchy alone, man could be secure of that 
ee direct agency of God upon his soul, after 
which it yearned with irrepressible solicitude. The 
will of man surrendered itself to the clergy, for on 
them depended its slavery or its emancipation, as far 
as it was capable of emancipation.. In the clergy, 
divine grace, the patrimony of the Church, was vested, 
and through them distributed to mankind. Baptism, 
usually administered by them alone, washed away 
original sin; the other rites and sacraments of which 
they were the exclusive ministers, were still conveying, 
and alone conveying, the influences of the Holy Ghost 
to the more or less passive soul. This objective and 
visible form as it were, which was assumed for the in- 
ward workings of God upon the mind and heart, by 
the certitude and security which it seemed to bestow, 
was so unspeakably consolatory, and relieved, especially 
the less reflective mind, from so much doubt and anx- 
iety, that mankind was disposed to hail with gladness 
rather than examine with jealous suspicion these 
claims of the hierarchy. Thus the Augustinian theol- 
ogy coincided with the tendencies of the age towards 
the growth of the strong sacerdotal system; and the 
sacerdotal system reconciled Christendom with the 


potuisse.— Apud Augustin. Oper. Imperf. i. 48. Augustine struggles 
in vain to elude the difficulty. Julianus as well as Pelagius himself 
strenuously asserted the necessity of infant baptism, not however as 
giving remission of sins, but as admitting to Christian privileges and 
blessings. 

1 Compare Hist. of Christ., iii. note, and quotation from Fulgentius. 


παρ IL. SACERDOTAL SYSTEM. 173 


Augustinian theology. But the invariable progress 
of the human mind, as to this question, is in itself re- 
markable ; and necessary for the full comprehension 
of Christian history. All established religions subside 
into Pelagianism, or at least semi-Pelagianism. The 
interposition of the priest, or the sacrament, or of both, 
between the direct agency of God and the soul: of 
man, for its own purposes, gradually admits a growing 
freedom of the will. Conformity to outward rites, 
obedience to orders or admonitions, every religious act 
is required on the one hand, as within the self-deter- 
mining power of the will, and is in itself a more and 
more conscious exertion of that power. The sacerdo- 
tal system, in order that it may censure with more 
awfulness, and incite with more persuasiveness, admits 
a greater spontaneity of resistance to evil, and of incli- 
nation to good. It emancipates to a certain extent, 
that it may rule with a more absolute control. And 
as it was with Pelagius, so it is with his followers. No 
Pelagian ever has or ever will work a religious revolu- 
tion. He who is destined for such a work must have 
a full conviction that God is acting directly, imme- 
diately, consciously, and therefore with irresistible 
power, upon him and through him. It is because he 
believes himself, and others believe him to be thus 
acted upon, that he has the burning courage to under- 
take, the indomitable perseverance to maintain, the 
inflexible resolution to die for his religion; so soon as 
that conviction is deadened, his power is gone. Men 
no longer acknowledge his mission, he himself has 
traitorously or timidly abandoned his mission. The 
voice of God is no longer speaking in his heart ; men 
no longer recognize the voice of God from his lips. 


174 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


The prophet, the inspired teacher, the all but apostle, 
has now sunk to an ordinary believer. He who is not 
predestined, who does not declare, who does not be- 
lieve himself predestined as the author of a great re- 
ligious movement, he in whom God is not manifestly, 
sensibly, avowedly working out his preéstablished 
designs, will never be Saint or Reformer. 

But there was another part of the Augustinian 
ub ao theology, which has quietly dropped from it 
original sin. jn all its later revivals, yet in his day was an 
integral, almost the leading doctrine of the system ; 
and falling in, as it did, with the dominant feelings of 
Christendom, contributed powerfully to its establish- 
ment, as the religion of the Church. Augustine was 
not content to assert original sin, in the strongest lan- 
guage, against Pelagius, but did not scruple to dogma- 
tize as to the mode of its transmission. This was by 
sexual intercourse, which he asserts in arguments, 
which the modesty of our present manners will not 
permit us to discuss, would have been unknown but 
for the Fall; and was in itself essentially evil,? though 
an evil to be tolerated in the regenerate, for the pro- 
creation of children, themselves to be regenerate.® 


1The whole argument of the Book de Concupiscentia et de Nuptiis. 
Intentio igitur hujus libriest ut . . . carnalis concupiscentiz malum, prop- 
ter quod homo qui per eam nascitur, trahit originale peccatum, discernamus 
a bonitate nuptiarum. 

2 Sed quia sine illo malo (carnalis concupiscentiz) fieri non potest nup- 
tiarum bonum, hoc est propagatio filiorum, ubi ad hujusmodi opus venitur, 
secreta queruntur. Hinc est quod infantes etiam, qui peccare non possunt, 
non tamen sine peccati contagione nascuntur, non ex hoc quod licet, sed ex 
hoe quod dedecet. — De Peccat. Origin., c. xxvii. His standing argument is 
from natural modesty, which he confounds with the shame of conscious 
guilt. 

3 The doctrine of original sin, as it is explicated by St. Austin, had two 
parents; one was the doctrine of the Encratites and some other heretics, 


= Sg 


Cuap. II. TRANSMISSION OF ORIGINAL SIN. 175 


Thus this great Oriental principle of the inherent 
evil of matter, as we have seen in the course of our 
Christian history, was the dominant and fundamental 
tenet of Gnosticism, lay at the root of Arianism, and 
will hereafter appear as the remote parent of Nestori- 
anism : and this was the primary axiom of all Monas- 
ticism, and so became, almost imperceptibly, the first 
recognized principle of all Latin theology. Augus- 
tine, in this theory of the transmission of sin, betrays 
that invincible horror of the intrinsic evil of the ma- 
terial and corporeal, which had been infused into his 
mind by his youthful Manicheism.' Most of the other 
leading tenets of the Manicheans, the creation of man 
by the antagonistic malignant power, the unreality of 
the Christ, the whole mystic mythology of the imagin- 
ative Orientals, Augustine had rejected with indigna- 
tion, and with the practical wisdom of the West; but, 
notwithstanding all his concessions on the dignity of 
marriage, he is, in this respect, an irreclaimable Mani- 
chean. Sin and all sensual indulgence, as it was 
called, all, however lawful, union between the sexes, 
were convertible terms, or terms so associated in human 
thought as to require some vigor of mind to discrim- 
inate between them. It was the vice of the theology 


who forbade marriage, and supposing it to be evil, thought that they were 
warranted to say it was the bed of sin, and children the spawn of vipers 
and sinners; and St. Austin himself, and especially St. Hierome, speaks 
some things of marriage, which if they were true, then marriage were 
highly to be refused, as being the increaser of sin rather than of children, 
and a semination in the flesh and contrary to the spirit; and such a thing, 
which being mingled with sin, produces univocal issues; the mother and 
the daughter are so alike that they are worse again.—Jer. Taylor, 
Answer to a Letter. 

1 Augustine strongly protests against the charge which was even then 
nade against him of Manicheism.— De Concup. et Nupt., lib. ii. 


176 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


of this period, and not, perhaps, of this period alone, 
that it seemed to make the indulgence of one passion 
almost the sole unchristian sin; a passion which is 
probably strengthened rather than suppressed by com- 
pelling the mind to dwell perpetually upon it. This 
(and on this the whole stress was laid throughout the 
controversy) was, the concupiscence of the flesh, in- 
herited from Adam, which was not washed away in 
the sanctifying waters of baptism, but still clave to the 
material nature of man, and was to be kept under con- 
trol only by the most rigid asceticism. Celibacy thus 
became not merely a hard duty, but a glorious distinc- 
tion: the clergy, and those females who aspired to 
more perfect Christianity, not merely chose a more 
difficult, and therefore, if successful, a more noble 
career — but were raised far above those lower mortals, 
who, in the most legitimate and holy form, that of 
faithful marriage, submitted to be the parents of children. 

Pelagius himself,' so completely was the human 
mind possessed with this notion, almost rivalled Augus- 
tine in his praises of virginity, which he considered 
the great test of that strength of free will which he 
asserted to be weakened only, if weakened, by the 
fall of Adam. 

The Augustinian theology, exactly to the extent to 
which it coincided with Latin Christianity, would no 
doubt harmonize with the opinions of one so com- 
ee pletely representing that Christianity as Tnno- 
417. Jan. 27. cent I. When the African Churches, in 
their councils at Carthage, and at Milevis in Numidia, 
addressed the Pontiff on this momentous subject, the 
character, as well as the station of Innocent, might 

1 pist. ad Demetriad. 


παρ. Π. APPEAL TO ROME. 177 


command more than respectful deference. Had they 
felt any jealousy as to their own independence, under 
the absorbing passion, the hatred of Pelagianism, they 
would have made any sacrifice to obtain the concur- 
rence of the Bishop of Rome. The letters inform 
Innocent that the Africans had renewed the unre- 
garded anathema pronounced against this wicked error, 
especially of Celestius, which had been issued five 
years before. They assert the power of Innocent to 
summon Pelagius to Rome to answer for his guilt, and 
to exclude him from the communion of the faithful.} 
They implore the dignity of the Apostolic throne, of 
the successor of St. Peter, to complete and Bott parties 
ratify that which is wanting to their more Rome. 
moderate power.? Pelagius himself, even if he did 
not acknowledge the jurisdiction of the tribunal, en- 
deavored to propitiate the favor of the judge: he ad- 
dressed an explanatory letter, and a profession of faith, 
to the Bishop of Rome.® 

Yet Augustine and the Africans were not without 
solicitude as to the decision of Innocent. Since Pela- 
gius, they knew, lived in Rome, undisturbed by the 
inquisitive zeal of the bishop, Augustine, in a private 
letter, signed by himself and four bishops, informed 
the Pope that some of these persons boasted that they 
had won him to their cause, or, at least, to think less 
unfavorably of Pelagius.4 


1 Aut ergo a {πὸ veneratione accersendus est Romam, et diligenter inter- 
rogandus. — Epist. Cone. Miley. Labbe, ii., p. 1547. 

2 Ut statutis nostra mediocritatis, etiam Apostolice sedis adhibeatur auc- 
toritas, pro tuenda salute multorum et quorundam etiam perversitate corri- 
genda. — Epist. Conc. Carthag. ad Innocent. Labbe, ii. p. 1514. 

8 Augustin. de Grat. Christ., cap. 30. De Pece. Origin., 17, 21, &e. 

4 Quidam scilicet quia vos tatia persuasisse perhibent. — Ibid. 


VOL. I. 12 


178 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


The answer of Innocent allayed their fears. He 
did not pass by the opportunity of asserting, as an 
acknowledged maxim, the dignity of the Apostolic 
See, the source of all episcopacy, and the advantage 
of an appeal to a tribunal, which might legislate for 
all Christendom.! On the Pelagian question he places 
himself on the broad, popular, and unanswerable 
ground, that all Christian devotion implies the assist- 
ance of divine grace; that it is admitted in every 
response of the service, in every act of worship. He 
pronounces the opinions anathematized by the African 
bishops to be heretical ; and declares that the unsound 
limb must be severed without remorse, lest it should 
infect the living body.? Africa, and all those who 
held the opinions of Augustine, triumphed in what 
might seem the unqualified sentence of the Bishop of 
Rome. At this period in the controversy, peath of 
and before the arrival of the letter from [>i?* 
Pelagius, died Pope Innocent I. 1c 

So far the Bishop of Rome had floated onwards 
towards supremacy on the full tide of dominant opin- 
ion ; his decrees were so acceptable to-the general ear, 
that the tone of authority in which they began to be 
couched, jarred not on any quivering chord of jealousy 


1 Qui ad nostrum referendum approbastis esse judicium, scientes quid 
Apostolic sedi (cum omnes hoc loco positi ipsum sequi desideremus Apos- 
tolum) debeatur, a quo ipse episcopatus et tota auctoritas nominis hujus 
emersit. — Innocent. Epist. ad Episc. Afric. 

Ut per cunctas orbis totius ecclesias, quod omnibus prosit, decernendum 
una esse deposcitis. — Ibid. 

2The lines of Prosper, who has written a long poem on this abstruse 
subject, have been referred to this decree of Innocent I. — 

In causam fidei flagrantius Africa nostra 
Exequeris; tecumque suum jungente vigorem 
Juris Apostolici solio, fera viscera belli 

Conficis, et lato prosternis limite victos. 


Cuap. II. DEATH OF INNOCENT I. 179 


or suspicion. The secret of that power lay in Rome’s 
complete impregnation with the spirit of the age; and 
this lasted, almost unbroken, till the Reformation. It 
were neither just nor true to call this worldly policy, 
or to suppose that the Bishops of Rome dishonestly 
conformed, or bent their opinions to their age for the 
sake of aggrandizing their power. Their sympathy 
with the general mind of Christianity constituted their 
strength ; from their conscious strength grew up, no 
doubt, their bolder spirit of domination ; but they be- 
came masters of the Western Church by being the 
representative, the centre, of its feelings and opinions. 
It was not till a much later period that the claim to 
personal infallibility, to the sole dictatorship over the 
Christianity of the world, was either advanced or 
thought necessary ; the present infallibility was but the 
expression of the universal, or at least predominant 
sentiment of mankind. 

Once at this period, and but for a short time, the 
Bishop of Rome threw himself directly across the 
stream of religious opinion. Zosimus, the 7,.mus. 
successor of Innocent, was by birth a Greek,} 4% 3 18, 
and seemed disposed to treat the momentous questions 
agitated by the Pelagian controversy with the contempt- 
uous indifference of a Greek. Whether from this 
uncongeniality of the Eastern mind with these debates ; 
whether from the pride of the man, which was flattered 
by the submission of both these dangerous heresiarchs 
to his authority; whether from an earnest and well- 
intentioned, but mistaken hope, of suppressing what 
appeared to him a needless dispute, Zosimus annulled 
at one blow all the judgments of his predecessor, In- 

1 Anastasius Bibliothec.. ο. 42. 


180 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. - Boox II. 


nocent ; and absolved the men, whom Innocent, if he 
had not branded with a direct anathema, had declared 
deserving to be cut off from the communion of the 
faithful. 

The address of Pelagius to Innocent had not arrived 
in Rome before the death of that prelate; it was ac- 
companied with a creed elaborately and ostentatiously 
orthodox on all the questions which agitated the East- 
ern mind, and a solemn and minute repudiation of all 
the heresies relating to the nature of the Godhead. It 
might seem almost prophetically intended to propitiate 
the favor of a Greek Pope. He touched but briefly 
on the freedom of the will, and the necessity of divine 
grace ; rejecting, as Manichean, the doctrine, that sin 
was inevitable ; as a doctrine which he ascribes to Jo- 
vinian, the impeccability of the Christian.!  Celestius, 
who had remained some time in peaceful retirement at 
Ephesus, had passed to Constantinople; from thence 
he is said to have been expelled by the Bishop Acacius. 
He now appeared in Rome, and throwing himself, as it 
were, at the feet of the Pontiff, declared that he was 
ready to submit to a dispassionate examination and 
authoritative judgment on his tenets. 

A solemn hearing was appointed in the Basilica of 
St. Clement. Celestius was listened to with favor ; if 
Pelagins  [Π6 positive sentence was delayed, his accusers 
and Celestius Tferos and Lazarus, the Gallic bishops, were 


declared 
orthodox. denounced in the strongest terms to the Afri- 


1 The creed apud Baronium—sub ann. 417—Liberum sic esse confite- 
mur arbitrium, ut dicamus nos semper Dei indigere auxilio, et tam illos 
errare qui cum Manicheis dicunt hominem peccatum vitare non posse, 
quam illos qui cum Joviniano asserunt, hominem non posse peccare: uter- 
que enim tollit libertatem arbitrii. — Was the first clause aimed at Augus- 
tine and the Africans ? 


Cuap. IL. TRIAL OF CELESTIUS. 181 


can Council as vagabond, turbulent, and intriguing 
prelates, who had either abdicated or abandoned their 
sees, and travelled about sowing strife and calumny 
wherever they went.! The African prelates were 
summoned within a short period to make good their 
charges against Celestius, who in this first investigation 
had appeared unimpeachable.? Zosimus went further : 
he had warned Celestius and his accusers alike to ab- 
stain from these idle questions and unedifying disputes, 
the offspring of vain curiosity, and of the desire for 
the display of eloquencé on subjects unrevealed.? Such 
to Zosimus appeared these questions, which had 
wrought Africa into a frenzy of zeal and distracted the 
whole West. The trial of Celestius was followed by 
the public recital of a letter from Praylas, sept. 21. 

Bishop of Jerusalem, asserting in the most unqualified 
terms the orthodoxy of Pelagius. It was read with 
joy, with admiration, almost with tears of delight. 
‘‘ Would,” writes Zosimus to the African bishops, 
“‘that one of you had been present at the edifying 
scene. That such a man should be impeached, and 
impeached by a Heros and a Lazarus! There was 
no point in which the grace and assistance of God 


1 Zosimus Aurelio et univ. Episcop. Africae. —Apud Labbe, ii., 1559. 

Heros, according to Zosimus, had been Bishop of Arles, Lazarus of Aix. 
Their rise was owing entirely to the tyrant (probably the usurper Constan- 
tine); it was accompanied with tumult and bloodshed, persecution of the 
priesthood who opposed them. With Constantine they fell, driven out by 
the execrations of the people, and abdicating their sees. —So the Bishop of 
Rome. S. Prosper gives a high character of both. —S. Prosper, Chron- 

2 Innotescere sanctitati vestre super absoluta Ceelestii fide nostrum exa- 
men. — Ib. 

8 Admoneri, has tendiculas questionum, et inepta certamina que non edi- 
ficant, sed magis destruunt, ex illa curiositatis contagione profluere, dam 
unusquisque ingenio suo et intemperanti eloquentia supra scripta abutitur. 
— Ibid. 


182 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


could be asserted by a faithful Christian, which was 
not fully acknowledged by them.” ὦ 

But the authority, which was received with deferen- 
tial homage, so long as it concurred with their own 
views, lost its magic directly that it espoused the 
opposite cause. The African bishops inflexibly ad- 
hered to the condemnation of Pelagius, of Celestius, 
and their doctrines. Carthage obstinately refused to 
yield to Rome; it appealed to the sentence of Inno- 
cent, and disdainfully rejected the annulling power of 
Zosimus. Augustine, indeed, continued to speak with 
conciliating mildness of the Roman Prelate; but he 
let fall some alarming and significant expressions as to 
the prevarication of the whole Roman clergy. 

To the long representation addressed to him by the 
Conpeil of Council of Carthage, Zosimus replied in a 
March, 418. haughty tone, asserting that, according to the 
tradition, no one might dare to dispute the judgment 
of the Apostolic See. But the close of the epistle 
betrayed his embarrassment. Whether his natural 
sagacity had discovered that he had rashly attempted 
to stem the torrent of opinion; his brotherly love for 
the African Churches would induce him to communi- 
cate all his determinations to them, in order that they 
might act together for the common good of Christen- 
dom. He had stayed, therefore, all further proceed- 
ings in the affair of Celestius.? 

It was time for Zosimus to retrace his precipitate 
Appealto course. Augustine and the African bishops 
the Emperor- had summoned to their aid a more powerful 


1 Tales enim absolute fidei infamari posse? Est ne ullus locus in que 
Dei gratia vel adjutorium pretermissum sit? Zosim. ad Episcop. Afric. 
Labbe, ii. p. 1561. 

2 Zosim. ad Episcop. Africe. 


Cuap. II. APPEAL TO THE EMPEROR. 183 


ally than even the Bishop of Rome. While the Pope 
either still adhered to the cause of Pelagius, or but be- 
gan to vacillate, an Imperial edict was issued from the 
court of Ravenna, peremptorily deciding on this ab- 
struse question of theology.!. This law was issued be- 
fore the final sitting of the Council of Carthage, in 
which, on the authority of two hundred and twenty- 
three bishops, eight canons were passed, condemnatory 
of Pelagianism. There can be no doubt, that the law 
was obtained by the influence of the African bishops 
with the Emperor or his ministers ; there is great like- 
hhood by the personal authority of Augustine with 
the Count Valerius. Italy, indeed, could hardly re- 
fuse to listen to the voice of Africa. This appeal to 
the civil magistrate is but another instance, that the 
ecclesiastical power has no scruple in employing in its 
own favor those arms of which it deprecates the use, 
the employment of which it treats as impious usurpa- 
tion, when put forth against it. By this law it became 
a crime against the state, to be visited with civil penal- 
ties, to assert that Adam was born liable to death.2 
The dangerous heresiarchs were condemned by name, 
and without hearing or trial, to banishment from Rome.? 
Informers were invited or commanded to apprehend 


1 The law is dated April 30, A.p. 418. The final council was held early 
in May. 

2 Hi parenti cunctorum Deo. . . . tam trucem inclemertiam seve vol- 
untatis assignant .... ut mortem premitteret nascituro (Adamo, sc.), 
non hance insidiis vetiti fluxisse peccati, sed exegisse penitus legem immu- 
tabilis constituti.— Rescript. Honor. et Theodos. apud Augustin. Oper. 
x., Append., p. 106. 

3 Hos ergo repertos ubicunque de hoc tam nefando scelere conferentes a 
qaibuscunque jubemus corripi, deductosque ad audientiam publicam pro- 
miscué ab omnibus accusari . . . ipsis inexorati exilii deportationi damna- 
‘is. — Ibid. 


184 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IL. 


and drag before the tribunals, and to accuse the main- 
tainers of these wicked doctrines. In the order issued 
by the Preetorian Prefects of Italy and the ._East, to 
carry this law into effect, not merely were the he- 
resiarchs banished, but their accomplices condemned 
to the confiscation of their estates, and to perpetual 
exile. 

Zosimus threw off the dangerous tenderness with 
ee, which he had hitherto treated Celestius and 
retracts. his party. Already, before the promulga- 
tion of the Imperial edict, he had demanded his une- 
quivocal condemnation of certain errors, charged 
against him by Paulinus, a Carthaginian deacon, who 
had been sent to Rome to represent the African opin- 
ions. Celestius was now again summoned to render 
an account of his tenets; under the ban of the Impe- 
rial law, an object of hatred to the populace, certain 
that the Pope had withdrawn his protection, of course 
he dared not appear: he had. quietly retired from 
Rome.2 Zosimus proceeded to condemn the faith, to 
anathematize the doctrines of Pelagius and Celestius, 
to excommunicate them from the body of the faithful, 
if they did not renounce and abjure the venomous 
tenets of their impious and abominable sect. Nor was 
this all: the Bishop of Rome addressed a circular let- 
ter to all the bishops of Christendom, condemning the 
doctrines of Pelagius. To this anathema they were 
expected to subscribe.? 

Eighteen bishops alone, of those who took this letter 


1 The convicted heretic, by the edict of Palladius, was to be facultatum 
publicatione nudatus. 

2 Augustin. de Pecc. Origin., c. 6. The gratulatory letter of Paulinus 
himself on the condemnation of Celestius, in Baronius, sub ann. 418. 

8 Augustin. de Pece. Orig., 3, 4; in Julian, 1, c. 4. Prosper in Chronic. 


Cuap. II. SEMI-PELAGIANISM. 185 


into consideration, refused to condemn their Highteen 
fellow Christians unheard. They turned tecusts. 
against Zosimus his own language to the African 
bishops, in which he had accused their precipitancy 
and injustice in condemning these very men without 
process or trial. They appealed to a General Council. 

Of these eighteen, the most distinguished was Juli- 
anus, Bishop of Eclana, in Campania. His j.iianus of 
opinions did not altogether agree with those >= 
of Pelagius and Celestius;! he was the founder of 
what has been called Semi-Pelagianism. Julianus 
from his birth, his character, and the events of his life, 
was a remarkable man. He was of a noble family, 
the son of a bishop, Memor, for whom Augustine en- 
tertained the warmest friendship.2 He was early ad- 
mitted into the lower order of the clergy, and married 
a virgin of birth and virtue equal to his own. She 
was of the Aimilian family, daughter of the Bishop 
of Beneventum. 

The epithalamium of Julianus and Ia was written 
by the holy Paulinus, Bishop of Nola. The poet 
urges upon the young and ardent couple not to break 
off their dangerous nuptials, but after their marriage 
to preserve their inviolate chastity. The pious bishop 
has, indeed, some misgivings as to the success of his 
poetic persuasions, and adds, that if they are betrayed 
into the weakness of having offspring, he trusts that 
they will make compensation to that state, which they 
have robbed of its brightest ornaments, by dedicating 


1The great point of difference was that Pelagius held Adam to have 
been born mortal; Julianus admitted that the sin of Adam had brought 
death into the world. 

2 Augustin. contr. Julian., i. 12. 


180 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IL 


all their children, a sacerdotal family, to virginity. 
Julianus was a man of great accomplishments, well 
read in the writers, especially the poets of Italy and 
Greece. But neither his illustrious descent, his Roman 
or his Christian kindred, nor his talents, nor his vir- 
tues, nor his station, availed in the least in this desper- 
ate conflict at once with power and popular opinion. 
There were now arrayed in formidable and irresistible 
confederacy, the three commanding influences in West- 
ern Christendom, the Pope, the Emperor, and Au- 
eustine. The Pope, indignant at the demand for a 
General Council, proceeded to involve Julianus and the 
rest of the eighteen remonstrants under the anathema 
pronounced against Pelagius, and to depose him from 
his see. Julianus had but the unsatisfactory consola- 
tion of asserting that Zosimus dared not meet him be- 
fore a General Council. The Emperor was at first 
disposed to accede to the demand for a Council, but 
the influence of Augustine with the Count Valerius 
changed the impartial judge into an implacable adver- 
sary. He is even accused, and by his most respected 
adversary Julianus, of employing every means, even 
those of corruption, to inflame the minds of the power- 
ful against the followers of Pelagius.2— A new Imperial 
edict sentenced to exile Julianus and all the bishops 
who had fallen under the anathema of Zosimus. A 
second rescript followed, commanding all bishops not 


1Ut sit in ambobus concordia virginitatis, 
Aut sint ambo sacris semina virginibus. 
Votorum prior hic gradus est, ut nescia carnis 
Membra gerant, quod si corpore congruerint, 
Casta sacerdotale genus ventura propago, 
Et domus Aaron sit tota domus Memoris. 
Paull. Nolan. Epithalamium, circa finem. 
2 See note infra. 


(παρ. II. JULIANUS, PELAGIUS, AND CELESTIUS. 187 


merely to subscribe the dominant opinions on these 
profound and abstruse topics, but to condemn their 
authors, Pelagius and Celestius, as irreclaimable here- 
tics, and this under pain of deprivation and banish- 
ment. Justly might Julianus taunt his ecclesiastical 
brethren with this attempt to crush their adversaries 
by the civil power. With shame and sorrow we hear 
from Augustine himself that fatal axiom, which for 
centuries reconciled the best and holiest men to the 
guilt of persecution, the axiom which impiously arrayed 
cruelty in the garb of Christian charity — that they 
were persecuted in compassion to their souls;! that 
they ought to be thankful for the kind violence, which 
did them no real injury, but coerced them for their 
good; and that if for this end the secular power was 
called in, it was to restrain them from their sacrilegious 
temerity.” 

Thus, then, on these men had fallen the ban of 
ecclesiastical and secular power, and in the pis perseeu- 
West, at least, of popular opinion.? Pela- °™ 
gius vanishes at this time from history ; he had been 
condemned by a Council at Antioch, and driven, a 
second Catiline as he is called by Jerome, from Jeru- 
salem: of his end nothing is known. The more cou- 
rageous and active Celestius still kept up the vain strife. 

1 Non impotentiz contra vos precamur auxilium, sed pro vobis potius ut 
ab ausu sacrilego cohibeamini, Christiane potenti laudamus officium. — 
Oper. Imperf., 1. ii., c. 14. 

2 Compare I. 10, where he says that Christian powers (he means the civil 
powers) are bound to use disciplinam coercitionis against all opponents of 
the Catholic faith. 

8 Julianus, it appears, objected to Augustine that all his authorities were 
Western bishops. This Augustine does not deny, but demands whether 
the authority of St. Peter and his successor, Innocent, is not enough. — 


Contr. Julian., 1, c. 18. He quotes, however, Gregory of Nazianzum and 
Basil. 


188 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


Twice he returned to Rome during the episcopacy of 
the successor of Zosimus, and twice again was ban- 
ished. At length, with Julianus, he took refuge at 
Constantinople, where he obtained a more favorable 
hearing both from the reigning Emperor, the younger 
Theodosius, and from Nestorius, the bishop. But his 
enemies were watchful, and Constantinople refused to 
entertain the condemned heresiarch: of his death like- 
wise history is silent. The accomplished Julianus,! 
exiled from his see, proscribed not merely by the harsh 
edicts of power, but hunted by popular detestation 
from town to town, wandered through Christendom, 
as if he bore a divine judgment upon him. His long 
and weary life was protracted thirty years after his 
exile.2, At length he settled as teacher of a school, in 
an obscure town of Sicily. The last act of the pro- 
scribed heretic was to sacrifice all he had to relieve 
the poor in a grievous famine. Some faithful follower, 
it is said, whether in zeal for his tenets or admiration 
for his virtues, inscribed on his tomb, ‘‘ Here sleeps in 
peace Julianus, the Catholic Bishop.” 


1The fragments of the writings of Julianus, especially those in the Opus 
Imperfectum of Augustine, show great acuteness and eloquence, and a 
facility and perspicuity of style which bears no unfavorable comparison 
with the great African father. His piety is unimpeachable. 

2 Julianus constantly taunts Augustine with this appeal to the passions 
of the rude and ignorant vulgar on such abstruse subjects, and with even 
worse means of persecuting his adversaries. Cur seditiones Rome conduc- 
tis populis excitastis? Cur de sumptibus pauperum saginastis per totam 
pene Africam, equorum greges, quos prosequenti Olybrio, tribunis et cen- 
turionibus destinAstis? Cur matronarum oblatis hereditatibus potestates 
seculi corrupistis, ut in nos stipula furoris publice ardeat? Cur dissipastis 
Ecclesiarum quietem? Cur religiosi principis tempora persecutionum im- 
pietate maculastis ?— Oper. Imperfect., iii. 74. 

Augustine contents himself by simply denying these charges, the last 
of which, by his own showing and by the extant edicts, was too true. 

In another place Julianus says, Ut erecto cornu dogma populare. — Oper 
Imperfect., ii. 2. 


Cuar. II. SEMI-PELAGIANISM. 189 


While the West in general bowed before the com- 
manding authority of Augustine ; trembled ας. 
and shrunk from any opinion which might P*s#sm 
even seem to impeach the sovereignty of God; laid its 
free will down a ready sacrifice before divine grace, as 
contained in the sacraments of the Church and admin- 
istered by the awful hierarchy ; hesitated not to aban- 
don the whole world, external to the Church, to that 
inevitable hell which was the patrimony of all the 
children of Adam ; Semi-Pelagianism arose in another 
quarter, and under different auspices, and maintained 
an obstinate contest for considerably more than a cen- 
tury. ‘This school grew up among the monasteries in 
the south of France. Among its partisans were some 
of the most eminent bishops of that province. The 
most distinguished, if not the first founder, of this 
Gallic Semi-Pelagianism was the monk Cassi- Cassianus. 
anus. ‘The birthplace of Cassianus is uncertain, but 
if not Greek or Oriental by birth, he was either one or 
the other, or both, by education! His youth was 
passed in the Eastern monasteries, first in Bethlehem, 
afterwards in Egypt. Eastern and Egyptian mona- 
chism, like its more remote ancestor in India, and its 
more immediate parent, the Essenism or Therapeutism 
of the Jews, was anything but a blind or humble Pre- 
destinarianism. It was the strength and triumph of 
the human will. It was the selfwrought victory over 
the bondage of matter; the violent avulsion and stern 
estrangement from all the indulgences, the pursuits, 

1 Notwithstanding the express words of Gennadius, Cassianus natione 
Scytha, he has been supposed an African. He is called Afer in the list of 
ecclesiastical writers by Honorius (1xi. ο. 84); an Egyptian (Pagi, Basnage, 


Fabricius); a Latin (Photius, c. 197); a Gaul (Card. Norris and the Bene- 
dictines, Hist. Lit. de la France). 


190 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


the affections, the society of the world. The dreamy 
and passive state of the monk, in which he was surren- 
dered to spiritual influences, began not till his own 
determination had withdrawn him into the austere and 
eremetical solitude. There man might be commingled, 
in absolute identity, with the Godhead. Every act of 
remorseless asceticism was a meritorious demand on 
the divine approbation. The divine influence was 
wrestled for and won by the resolute and prevailing 
votary, not bestowed as the unsought gift of God. 
Cassianus passed from Egypt to Constantinople, where 
he became the favored pupil of that Greek Father 
whose writings are throughout the most adverse to the 
Augustinian system. The whole theology of Chrysos- 
tom, in its general impression, is a plain and_ practical 
appeal to the free will of man. He addresses man as 
invested in an awful responsibility, but as self-depend- 
ent, self-determining to good or evil. The depravity 
against which he inveighs is no inherited, inherent. cor- 
ruption, to be dispossessed only by divine grace, but a 
personal, spontaneous, self-originating, and self-main- 
tained surrender to evil influences; to be broken off 
by a vigorous effort of religious faith, to be controlled 
by severe self-imposed religious discipline. As far as 
is consistent with prayer and devotion, man is master 
of his own destiny. The Augustinian questions of 
predestination, grace, the foreknowledge of God, even, 
in general, the atonement and the extent of its conse- 
quences, lie without the sphere of Chrysostom’s theol- 
ogy. Cassianus received at least the first holy orders 
from Chrysostom. During the disturbances in Con- 
stantinople relating to his deposal, Cassianus was sent 
to Rome on a mission to Pope Innocent I. To the 


CuaAp. II. CASSIANUS. 191 


memory of Chrysostom he preserved the most fervent 
attachment. Chrysostom was to him a second John 
the Evangelist.1 

Probably after the fall of Chrysostom, Cassianus 
settled at Marseilles, and founded two mon- ¢,.ianus 
asteries, one of men and one of women, in ™ 1. 
which he introduced the severe discipline of the East. 
Marseilles was Greek ; it retained to a late period the 
character and, to some degree, the language of a 
Grecian colony; no doubt, on that account, it was 
congenial to Cassianus. But Cassianus became so 
completely master of Latin as to write in that lan- 
guage his Monastic Institutes, the austere and inflexi- 
ble code followed in most of the ccenobitic foundations 
north of the Alps; and it is chiefly from this work 
that posterity can collect the Semi-Pelagian opin- 
ions of its author.2 Already, however, some of the 
faithful partisans of Augustine had given the alarm 
at this tendency towards rebellion against the dictator- 
ship of their master. Prosper and Hilarius denounced 
this yet more secret defection of those who presumed 
to impugn with vain objections the holy Augustine on 
the grace of God.? The last works which occupied 


1 Adoptatus a beatissimz memorize Joanne in ministerium sacrum atque 
oblatus Deo . . . . Mementote magistrorum vestrorum veterum sacerdo- 
tumque vestrorum .... Joannis fide ac puritate mirabilis: Joannis in- 
quam, Joannis illius qui veré ad similitudinem Joannis Evangeliste, et 
discipulus Jesu et Apostolus, quasi super pectus domini semper affectumque 
discubuit . . . . Qui communis mihi ac vobis magister fuit; cujus discipuli 
et institutio sumus, οὐ segqg. — Cassianus de Incarn. ec. 31. 

2 There has been a controversy whether Cassianus was a Semi-Pelagian. 
With his works before them, even from the same passages of his works, 
grave and learned men have argued on both sides. 

8 Gratiam Dei, qua Christiani sumus, qui tam dicere audent a sancte 
memorize Augustino Episcopo non recté esse defensam, librosque ejus 
contra errorem Pelagianum conditos immoderatis calumniis impetere non 
quiescunt. — Prosper contr. Collatorem, c. 1. 


192 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


Augustine were addressed to Prosper and Hilarius, 
in order to check this daring inroad, and to establish 
on irrefragable grounds the predestination of the saints 
and the gift of perseverance.’ 

The partisans of Augustine continued to wage the 
war with all the burning zeal and imperious 
authority of their master. A school arose, 
not of theology alone, but of poetry. Prosper, in a 
long poem, compelled the reluctant language and form 
of Latin verse to condemn the “ ungrateful,” who in 
their wanton pride ascribed partly to themselves, not 
absolutely to the grace of God, the work of their 
salvation. Prosper and Hilarius were followed by a 
long line of assertors of the Augustinian Predestina- 
rianism, of which Fulgentius was the most rigid and 
inexorable advocate.” 

Cassianus, on the other side, handed down to a 
succession of more or less bold disciples the aversion 
to the extreme views of Augustine. It is doubtful 
whether the Vincentius, who espoused his opinions, 
was the celebrated Abbot of Lerins, the author of the 
‘Commonitory.’ Ata later period Faustus, Bishop of 
Riez, brought the sanction of learning, high character, 
and sanctity to the same cause. 

Semi-Pelagianism aspired to hold the balance be- 
tween Pelagius and Augustine ;? to steer a safe and 
middle course between the abysses into which each, on 


Controversy 
in Gaul. 


1 De Preedestinatione Sanctorum liber ad Prosperum et Hilarium... - 
De dono perseverantiz liber ad Prosperum et Hilarium secundus. 

2 Fulgentius was the predecessor of that modern divine who is said to have 
spoken of the comfortable doctrine of the eternal damnation of little children. 

3 Sed nec cum hereticis tibi, nec cum Catholicis plena concordia est . . . 
tu informe, nescio quid, tertium et utraque parte inconveniens reperisti, quo 
nec inimicorum consensum adquireres, nec in nostrorum permaneres. — 
Prosper, c. ii. p. 117. 


Cuap. II. CONTROVERSY IN GAUL. 193 


either side, had plunged in desperate pr sumption.! 
It emphatically repudiated the heresy of Pelagius in 
the denial of original sin; it assérted divine grace, 
but it seemed to confine divine grace to the outward 
means, the Scriptures and the sacraments, rather 
than to its inward and direct workings on the soul 
itself. 

But it condemned with equal resolution the system 
of Augustine, by which the grace of God was hard- 
ened into an iron necessity ; it reproached him with 
that Manicheism which divided mankind into two 
hard antagonistic masses.? 

But of all religious controversies this alone had the 
merit of not growing up into a fatal and implacable 
schism.* The Semi-Pelagians, though condemned in 
several successive councils, were not cast out of the 
Church, and did not therefore form separate and 
hostile communities. This rare mutual respect, 
which now prevailed, is no doubt to be attributed 
to one important cause. The monasteries, which 
were held in such profound and universal venera- 
tion, were the chief schools of these doctrines; some 


1 Compare Walch, v. p. 56. 

2 Compare the letter of Prosper to Rufinus, in which Augustine is said to 
make duas humani generis massas, an error as bad as that of heathens or 
Manicheans. 

3 No question has been more disputed in later days, or with less certain 
result, than whether there was a distinct sect of Predestinarians at this 
period. The controversy originated in the publication of a remarkable 
tract, the “ Predestinatus,” by the Jesuit Sirmond. The great object was 
to clear the memory of Augustine, who was claimed both by Jesuits and 
Jansenists. Such a sect, if it existed, would carry off from St. Augustine 
all the charges heaped upon Predestinarianism at that time. If they were 
heretics, Augustine was of unimpeached orthodoxy, and therefore could not 
have held a condemnable Predestinarianism. Walch discusses the question 
at length, vol. v. 


VOL. I. 13 


194 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


of the most austere and most admired of these 
Coenobites were the chief assertors of the free will 
of man.} 


1 Prosper himself betrays this enforced respect and its peculiar source: — 


Nec tibi fallacis subrepat imago decoris, 
Nullum ex his errare putes, licet in Cruce vitam 
Ducant, et jugi afficiant sua corpora morte: 
Abstineant opibus; sint casti; sintque benigni; 
Terrenisque ferant animum super astra relictis; 
Si tamen heec propria virtute capessere quenquam 
Posse putant, sitve ut dignus labor iste juvari 
Ingenium meruisse aiunt bona vera petentis; 
Crescere quo cupiunt, minuuntur; proficiendo 
Deficiunt; surgendo cadunt, currendo recedunt; 
Unde etenim vani frustra splendescere querunt, 
Inde obscurantur: quoniam sua, laudis amore, 
Non que sunt Christi querunt, nec fit Deus illis 
Principium et capiti non dant in corpore regnum. 

Prosper ad Ingratos, xxxvii. 


Cuae. III. DEATH OF ZOSIMUS. 195 


CHAPTER III. 
NESTORIANISM. 


Zosimus filled the See of Rome only a year and 
nine months. His short pontificate was agi- ar. 18, 417. 
tated not only by the Pelagian controversy, Deo. θαι 
but by disputes with the bishops of Southern “”™"* 
Gaul and of Africa, hereafter to be considered when 
the relations of those provinces to the See of Rome 
shall take their place in our history. 

The death of Zosimus gave rise to the third con- 
tested election for the See of Rome. 

The greater the dignity of the Bishop of Rome, and 
the more lofty his pretensions to supremacy, the more 
would ambition covet this post of power and distinc- 
tion; the more, on the other hand, would holy and 
Christian emulation aspire to place the worthiest pre- 
late in this commanding station; and men’s Denes 
opinions would not ae concur as to the Dee. 27,28. 
ecclesiastic best qualified to preside over Western 
Christendom. Thus while the most ungovernable 
worldly passions and interests would intrude them- 
selves into the election, honest religious zeal, often 
the blindest, always the most obstinate of human 
motives, would esteem it a sacred duty to espouse, 
an impious weakness to abandon, some favorite 
cause. 

The unsettled form of the election, and the unde- 


190 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IL 


Unsettled fined rights of the electors, could not but 
form of 5 5 

election. increase the difficulty and exasperate the 
strife. The absolute nomination by the clergy would 
have been no security against contested elections ; for 
in every double election a large part of the clergy was 
ranged on either side, and formed the rival factions, 
A certain assent of the people was still considered 
necessary to ratify the appointment. At all events, 
the people looked on the election with such profound 
interest, during a contest with such violent excitement, 
that it was impossible to exclude them from interfer- 
ence: and both factions were so anxious for their sup- 
port, that only the losing party would see the impro- 
priety of their tumultuous mingling in the fray. The 
election of. the Bishop was now as much an affair of 
the whole city as that of a consul or a dictator of old, 
without the ancient and time-honored regulations for 
collecting the suffrages by centuries or by tribes. 

And who were the people? — Was this right equally 
The people. shared by all the members of the religious 
community, now almost coextensive in number with 
the inhabitants of the city? Had the Senate any 
special privilege, or were all these rights of the laity 
vested in the Emperor alone as the supreme civil 
power, and so in the Prefect of Rome, the representa- 
tive of imperial authority? The popular universal 
suffrage, which, in a small primitive church, one per- 
vaded with pure Christian piety, tended to harmony, 
became an uncontrolled democratic anarchy when the 
bishopric included a vast city. It is surprising that 
this difficulty, which was not removed until, at a com- 
paratively recent period, the election was vested in the 
College of Cardinals, was not fatal to the supremacy 


Crap. III. THE PEOPLE. 197 


of Rome. But though the wild scenes of anarchy and 
tumult, which, especially from the eighth to the elev- 
enth century, impaired the authority of the Pope in 
Rome itself, and desecrated his person; though the 
successful Pontiff was often only the head of a trium- 
phant faction, and was either disobeyed, or obeyed with 
undisguised reluctance, by the defeated party ; still dis- 
tance seemed to soften off all this unseemly confusion, 
above which the Pope appeared seated on his serene 
and lofty throne in undiminished majesty. It con- 
stantly happened that at the very time at which in 
Rome the Pope was insulted, maltreated, wounded, 
imprisoned, driven from the city, the extreme parts of 
Christendom were bowing to his decrees in unshaken 
reverence. 

Twice already — perhaps more than twice — had 
Rome been afflicted with a fierce and prolonged con- 
test. The austere bigotry of Novatian had maintained 
his claim against the authority of Cornelius. Felix 
had been the antipope to Liberius. The streets of 
Rome had run with blood, the churches had been de- 
filed with dead bodies, in the more recent strife of Da- 
masus and Ursicinus. 

On the death of Zosimus, some of the clergy chose 
the Archdeacon Eulalius in the Lateran Church ; on 
the same, or the next day, a larger number met in the 
Church of 5. Theodora, and elected the Presbyter 
Boniface. Three bishops, among whom was _ the 
Bishop of Ostia, either compelled, it was said, or, 
yielding through the weakness of extreme old Dee. 27, 28. 
age, consecrated Eulalius. Boniface was inaugurated 
by nine bishops, in the presence of seventy poutie 
presbyters, in the Church of St. Marcellus. “t°™ 


198 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox Ii. 


Rome might apprehend the return of those terrible and 
bloody days which marked the elevation of Damasus. 
The Prefect of Rome was Symmachus, son of that 
eloquent orator who had defended with so much en- 
ergy the lost cause of paganism. The outward con- 
formity, at least, of Symmachus to Christianity may 
be presumed from the favor of Honorius; but it is 
curious to find a contest for the Papacy dependent for 
its decision on the son of such a father. Symmachus, 
in his report to the Emperor, inclines toward the party 
Eualius. of Eulalius. Boniface was summoned to Ra- 
venna. He delayed to obey the mandate, which 
reached him when he was performing his sacred func- 
tions without the city ; the officers of the Prefect were 
maltreated by the populace of his party. The gates 
of Rome, therefore, were closed upon Boniface, and 
Jan. 6. Eulalius, in great state, amid the acclamations 
of part, at least, of the people, took possession of St. 
Peter’s, the Capitol, as it were, of Christianity. 

The party of Boniface were not inactive, or without 
influence at the court of Ravenna. The petition to 
the Emperor declared that all the Presbyters of Rome 
would accompany Boniface, to make known her will, 
or, rather, the judgment of God.}_ Honorius issued a 
πάρε, —- eSCTipt, with supercilious impartiality com- 
Honorius. manding both prelates to remain at a distance 
from the city, until the cause should be decided by a 
synod of bishops from Italy, Gaul, and Africa. In the 
mean time, as the Roman people could not be deprived 
of the solemn rites of Easter, Achilleus, Bishop of 
Spoleto, was ordered to officiate during the vacancy. 


1 Prelectis singulis Titulis, presbyteri omnes aderunt, qui voluntatem 
suam, hoc est, judicium Dei proloquantur. — Apud Baronium, sub ann. 419. 


Cap. II. BONIFACE POPE. 199 


Eulalius would not endure this sacrilegious usurpation 
of the powers of his see. He surprised by night, at 
the head of that part of the populace which was on 
his side, the Lateran Church ; and in contempt of the 
Emperor’s orders, celebrated the holy rites. But the 
days of successful conflict with the civil power were 
not yet come. The rashness of Eulalius estranged 
even Symmachus from his cause: this act was treated 
as one of rebellion. Eulalius was expelled from the 
city. He was threatened, as well as all the mar. 18-28. 
clergy who adhered to him, with still more fearful pen- 
alties. The laity who communicated with Eulalius 
were to be punished, the higher orders with banish- 
ment and confiscation, slaves with death. The pri- 
mates of the Regions of Rome were to be responsible 
for all popular tumults. Such was the commanding 
judgment of the Emperor.? 

Boniface took possession without further contest of 
the Pontifical throne. He was the son of a Boniface 
presbyter? named Jocondus, a Roman by Apr. 10. 
birth ; he was an aged prelate, of mild and blameless 
character ; wisely anxious to prevent, as far as pos- 
sible, the scandals, and even crimes, in which he had 
been so nearly involved. He addressed the Emperor, 
urging the enactment of a law, a civil law, which 
should restrain ecclesiastical ambition, and coerce those 
who aspired to obtain by intrigue, what ought to be 
the reward of piety and holiness. Honorius issued an 
edict, that in case of a contested election both the rival 
candidates should be excluded from the office, and a 
new appointment made. Thus the Imperial power 

1 Symmachi rescript. apud Baron. 
2 See the rescript of Honorius, apud Baronium 


8 Platin. vit. Bonifac. 


ἥ 


900 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


assumed, and was acknowledged to possess, full au- 
thority to regulate the election of Bishops of Rome.! 
During the three years of the pontificate of Boniface, 
the Pelagian controversy was still drawing out its 
almost interminable length. 

On the death of Boniface,? Eulalius refused to leave 
the seclusion into which he had retired ; the decline of 
life may have softened his ambition —for he died the 
Sept. 4,422. following year. Celestine was elected, and 
ruled in peace the See of Rome. The Pontificates of 
Nov.10. Celestine 1.8 and his successor Sixtus I.* were 
Celestine. occupied by the Nestorian controversy : oc- 
cupied, but hardly disturbed. The East, as it has ap- 
peared, had stood aloof serene and’ unimpassioned 
throughout the Pelagian controversy; in Palestine, 
the Latin Jerome alone, and his partisans the two 
Western bishops of doubtful fame, would not endure 
the presence of Pelagius. In Alexandria and Con- 
stantinople, Predestination, Grace, Free Will, excited 
no tumults, arrayed against each other no hostile fac- 
tions, demanded no councils. The Bishop of Con- 
stantinople pronounced his authoritative decrees, which 
no one desired to question ; and expelled from his dio- 
cese Celestius, or Pelagius himself, whom no one cared 
to defend. They alone, of all powerful heresiarchs in 
Constantinople, neither distracted the Imperial court, 
nor maddened popular faction. 

Latin Christianity contemplated with almost equal 
pa at! indifference Nestorianism, and all its prolific 
ofthe West. race, Eutychianism, Monophysitism, Mono- 


1 Rescriptum Honorii, apud Baronium. 

2 Boniface died Nov. 4, 422. 

3 Celestine I., Nov. 10, 422; died July, 432. 
4 Sixtus I., 482; died 440. 


¢ 


Cuap. III. STATE OF THE EAST. 201 


thelitism. While in this contest the two great Patri- 
archates of the East, Constantinople and Alexandria, 
brought to issue, or strove to bring to issue, their rival 
claims to ascendency ; while council after council pro- 
mulgated, reversed, reénacted their conflicting decrees ; 
while separate and hostile communities were formed in 
every region of the East; and the fears of persecuted 
Nestorianism, stronger than religious zeal, penetrated 
for refuge remote countries, into which Christianity 
had not yet found its way: in the West there was no 
Nestorian, or Eutychian sect. Some councils con- 
demned, but with hardly an audible remonstrance, 
these uncongenial heresies: the doctrines are con- 
demned, but there appears no body of heretics whom 
it is thought necessary to strike with the anathema. 

In the East, religion ceased more and more to be an 
affair of pure religion. It was mingled up gtate of 
with all the intrigues of the Imperial court, '°®™s* 
with all the furies of faction in the great cities. The 
council was the arena, not merely for Christian doc- 
trine, but for worldly ascendency. Secular ambition 
could no longer be distinguished, nor could the warring 
prelates themselves distinguish it, from zeal for ortho- 
doxy. Religious questions being decided by the favor 
of the Emperor, the Empress, or the ruling minister, 
eunuch or barbarian, that favor was sought by the 
most unscrupulous means — by intrigue, by adulation, 
by bribery ; and these means became hallowed. There 
was no sacrifice with which Alexandria would not pur- 
chase superiority over Constantinople, or Constantino- 
ple over Alexandria: the rivalry of the sees darkened 
into the fiercest personal hostility. 

In the mean time the Bishop of Rome, unembarrassed 


202 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


with the intricacies of the question, which had no 
temptation for his more practical understanding, with 
the whole West participating in his comparative apa- 
thy, could sit, at a distance, a tranquil arbiter, and in- 
terfere only when he saw his own advantage, or when 
all parties, exasperated or wearied out, gladly submit- 
ted to any foreign or unpledged judgment. The East-. 
ern prelates, too eager to destroy each other, were 
either blind to, or in the heat of mutual detestation 
disregarded this silent aggression, and admitted princi- 
ples without suspicion fatal to their own indepen- 
dence. 

On the nature of the Godhead the inexhaustible 
East had not yet nearly run the whole round of 
speculative thought; the Greek language still found 
new gradations on which it might employ its fine 
and subtile distinctiveness. All these controversies, 
which began anew with Nestorianism, sprang by lineal 
and unbroken descent from the great ancestral princi- 
ple. The same Oriental tenet (however it may not, 
at first sight, be apparent) which gave birth to the 
various Gnostic sects, and to Manicheism, had lain at 
the root of Arianism,! now quickened into life Nes- 
torianism and all its kindred race. Arianism had 
arisen out of that profound sense of the malignancy 
of matter, which in its ἀνὰ influence had led to 

1Hist. of Christianity, vol. ii. p. 448. Add to the authorities there 
quoted this decisive passage Hee ving himself, apud Athanas. xvi. de Syn. 
εἰ δὲ τὸ ἐξ αὐτοῦ, Kal τὸ ἐκ γαστρὸς (Psalm, cx. 3) καὶ τὸ ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς 
. ἔξηλϑον, καὶ ἤκω, ὡς μέρος αὐτοῦ ὁμοούσιον καὶ ὡς προβολὴ ὑπὸ τινων νοεῖται, 
σύνϑετος ἔσται ὁ πατὴρ καὶ διαιρετὸς καὶ τρεπτὸς καὶ σῶμα κατ᾽ αὐτοὺς. 
Arius accused his adversaries of destroying this pure spirituality of the 
Father, by asserting the ὁμοούσια of the Son. The Father became likewise 


composed of parts, divisible, mutable, corporat and to him this was an 
unanswerable argument. 


Crap. III. TRINITARIANISM ESTABLISHED. 203 


the Manichean Dualism. The pure, primal, parental 
Deity must stand entirely aloof from all connection 
with that in which evil was inherent, inveterate, 
inextinguishable. This was the absolute essence of 
Deity ; this undisturbed, unattainted Spiritualism, which 
disdained, repelled, abhorred the contact, the approxi- 
mation of the Corporeal, which once assimilating to, 
or condescending to assume any of the attributes of 
Matter, ceased to be the Godhead. 

By the triumph of the Athanasian Trinitarianism, and 
by the gradual dominance which it had ob- ‘rinitarian- 

ism estab- 

tained over the general mind of Christendom, lishea. 
the coequal and consubstantial Godhead in the Trinity 
had become an article of the universal creed in the 
Latin Church. Arianism survived only among the bar- 
barians. The East adhered almost as generally to the 
Creed of Nicea. The Son, therefore, had become, if 
the expression may be ventured, more and more divine ; 
he was more completely not merely assimilated, but 
absolutely identified, with the original, perfect, uncon- 
taminated Godhead. Yet his descent into the material 
world, his admixture with the external, the sensible, 
the created —his assumption of the form and being 
of man (which all agreed to be essential to the Chris- 
tian scheme, not in seeming alone, according to the 
Docetic notion, but actually and really) — must be 
guarded by the same jealousy of infecting his pure 
and spiritual essence by the earthly contagion: that 
which would have been fatal to the spirituality of 
the Father, might endanger the same prerogative of 
the Son. The divine and human nature could not 
indeed be kept separate, but they must be united 
with the least possible sacrifice of their essential at- 


204 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


tributes. If (according to Nestorius) the Eternal 
and Coequal Word were born, this was a denial 
viewsor of his preéxistence; and to assert that he 
Nestorius. Gould be liable to passion or suffering,’ in 
the same manner violated the pure spirituality of the 
Godhead. He proposed, therefore, that the appella- 
tion, Christ, should be confined, and, as it were, 
kept sacred, as signifying the Being, composed of 
the blended, yet unconfounded, God and man; and 
that the Virgin should be the mother of Christ, the 
God-man, not the mother of God, of the unassociated 
divinity.?2 This is the key to the whole controversy. 
Never was there a case in which the contending 
parties approximated so closely. Both subscribed, 
both appealed to the Nicene Creed; both admitted 
the preéxistenee, the impassibility of the Eternal 
Word; but the fatal duty, which the Christians in 
that age, and unhappily in subsequent ages, have 
imposed upon themselves, of considermg the detec- 
tion of heresy the first of religious obligations, mingled, 
as it now was, with human passions and interests, made 
the breach irreparable. Men like Cyril of Alexandria, 
in whom religion might seem to have inflamed and 
embittered, instead of allaying, the worst passions of 
our nature, pride, ambition, cruelty, rapacity ; and 
Councils like that of Ephesus, with all the tumult and 
violence without the dignity of a senate or popular 
assembly, convulsed the East, and led to a fierce and 
irreconcilable schism. 

The stern repudiation of the term, the Mother of 
Worship or rod, encountered another sentiment, which 
the Virsm- had been rapidly growing up, as one of the 


1 Patibilis. 2 Χριστοτοκός, not Θεοτοκός. 


Crap. II. WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN. 205 


dominant influences of the Christian mind. The wor- 
ship of the Virgin had arisen from the confluence of 
many pure and gentle, and many natural feelings. 
The reverence for everything connected with the 
Redeemer, especially by ties so close and _ tender, 
would not with cold jealousy watch and limit its ardent 
language. The more absolute deification, if it may 
be so said, of Christ; the forgetfulness of his human- 
ity induced by his investment in more remote and 
awful Godhead, — created a want of some more kin 
dred and familiar object of adoration. The worship 
of the intermediate saints admitted that of the Virgin 
as its least dangerous, most affecting, most consolatory 
part. ‘The exquisite beauty and purity of the images, 
the Virgin Mother and the Divine Infant, though not 
as yet embodied in the highest art, by painting or 
sculpture, appealed to the unreasoning and unsuspect- 
ing heart. ΤῸ this was added, the superior influence 
with which Christianity had invested the female sex, 
and which naturally clave to this gentler and kindred 
object of adoring love. In one of the earliest docu- 
ments relating to this controversy, the honor con- 
ferred on the female sex by the birth of the Lord 
from the Virgin Mary is dwelt upon in glowing 
terms: woman’s glory is inseparably connected with 
that of the Virgin Mother. The power exercised 
by females at the court of Constantinople, now by 
the sisters and wives, the Pulcherias and Eudoxias, 
at other times, by the mothers of Emperors, the 
Helenas and Irenes, as in some degree springing 
from Christianity, was strengthened by, and in its 
turn strengthened, this adoration of the Virgin Mary, 
which interposed itself between that of Christ, and 


206 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


still more that of God the Father, and the worship- 
ping Christian. 

With this view accords the whole course of the 
Promotion of history. On the death of Sisinnius Bishop 
Nestorius, 3 
a.v.428.. of Constantinople, the Emperor, the younger 
Theodosius, to terminate the intrigues and factions 
among the clergy of the city, summoned Nestorius 
from Antioch to the Episcopal Throne of the Eastern 
Rome.! Nestorius appeared, simple in his dress, grave 
in his demeanor, pale and meagre from ascetic observ- 
ances, and with the fame of surpassing eloquence.? 
He revived to the expecting city the fond remem- 
brance of Chrysostom, who, like him, had been called 
from Antioch to Constantinople. The Golden Mouth 
was again to appall and delight the city. But the 
religion of Chrysostom, from its strong practical char- 
acter, had escaped that speculative tinge which seemed 
natural to the Syrian mind. The last lingermg ves- 
tiges of Gnosticism survived in Syria. Arius, though 
not a Syrian Presbyter, found his most ardent adher- 
ents in that province ; and now from the same quarter 
sprang this new theory, which, though it rested its 
claim to orthodoxy on its irreconcilable hostility to 
Arianism, grew out of the same principle. 

Anastasius, a presbyter, who accompanied Nestorius 
Commence. from Antioch, first sounded the clarion of 
ae strife and confusion. He publicly preached 
Ap. 429. that it was improper and even impious to 


1 Nestorius was a Syrian, a native of Germanicia. —Socrat. vii. 29. 
Theodoret, Heret. Fab. iv. 12. Simeon Batharsam. apud Assemanni, 
Biblioth. Orient. i. 346. 

2Tant& antea opinione vixisti, ut tuis te aliena civitas invideret. Such 
is the honorable testimony bortie to the character of Nestorius by Pope 
Celestine. — Epistol. ad Nestor., Mansi, iv. 1206. 

8 Cassian De Incarn. vii. 30. Tillemont, page 286. 


Cnap. III. OPINIONS OF NESTORIUS. 207 


address the Virgin Mary as the Mother of God. The 
indignation and excitement of the city was heightened 
by fast-spreading rumors, that the Bishop not merely 
refused to silence the sacrilegious Presbyter, but openly 
avowed the same opinion.!. As is usual, the subtile 
distinctions of Nestorius were unheard or unintelligible 
to the common ear. He proscribed an appellation to 
which the pulpits and the services of the Church had 
habituated the general mind. The tenet jarred upon 
the high-strung sensitiveness of an inveterate faith, 
and awoke resentment, on which the finest argument 
was lost. In the great Metropolitan Church germons of 

the Bishop delivered a sermon on the Incar- ***°""* 

nation of the Lord.? As an orator he placed his own 
theory in the most brilliant light. He dwelt on the 
omnipotence, the glory, and all the transcendent at- 
tributes of God the Creator, and of God the Re- 
deemer. ‘And can this God have a mother?” 
“ΓΘ. heathen notion of a God born of a mortal 
mother is directly confuted by St. Paul, who declares 
the Lord without father and without mother. Could 
a creature bear the Uncreated? Could the Word 
which was with the Father before the worlds, become 
a new-born infant? The human nature alone was 
born of the Virgin: that which is of the flesh is 
flesh. The manhood was the instrument of the di- 
vine purposes, the outward and visible vesture of the 
Invisible. God was incarnate, indeed, but God died 
not; his death was but casting off the weeds of mor- 
tality, which he had assumed for a time.” A second 

1 Socrates, H. E. vii. 29, 32. 
2 Socrates, H. E. vii. 82. Evagrius, i.2. Liberatus, Breviar. c. 4 


3 Socrates, ut supra. 
4 Marius Mercator, edit. Garnier, ii. p. 5. 


208 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


and a third sermon followed, in which Nestorius still 
further unfolded his opinions: ‘Like can but bear 
like; a human mother can only bear a human being. 
God was not born — he dwelt in that which was born ; 
the Divinity underwent not the slow process of growth 
and development during the nine months of preg- 
nancy.” But the more perplexing and subtle are 
arguments addressed to those whose judgment is al- 
ready ratified by their passions, they only inflame 
resentment instead of working conviction. The whole 
city was in an uproar ; every ecclesiastical rule broken 
asunder. The presbyters, in every quarter, preached 
against their bishop; and a bold monk (the monks 
were always the faithful representatives of the relig- 
ious passions of their age) forbade the Bishop, as an 
obstinate heretic, to approach the altar. Nestorius 
(and in all his subsequent afflictions it must be re- 
membered that, when in power, he scrupled not to 
persecute) did not bear these insults with Christian 
equanimity, or repress them with calm dignity. ‘The 
refractory priests and the tumultuous people were 
seized, tried, and scourged more cruelly than in a land 
of barbarians. Nestorius, it is said, with his own 
hand, struck the presumptuous monk, and then made 
him over to the officers, who flogged him through 
the streets, with a crier going before to proclaim his 
offence, and then cast him out of the city. 

1 This is the account indeed of a partisan — the report of Basilius to the 
Emperor Theodosius. Labbe, Concil. But his whole history shows the 
persecuting spirit of Nestorius:—‘‘ The fifth day after his consecration 
he endeavored to deprive the Arians of their church: they burned it down 
in despair. He was called by his enemies Nestorius the Incendiary.” 
Socrat. vii. 29. He excited also a violent persecution against the Nova- 


tians, Quarto-decimans and Macedonians.—Ibid. et ce. 31. The most 
damning fact against him, however, is his own boast that he procured 


Cuap. III. OPINIONS OF NESTORIUS. 209 


Nestorius found in Constantinople itself a more 
dangerous antagonist. On a festival in honor of the 
Virgin, Proclus Bishop of Cyzicum (an unsuccessful 
rival, it is said, of Nestorius for the Metropolitan See) 
delivered a passionate appeal to the dominant feeling. 
The worship of the Virgin, in the most poetic ages 
of Christianity, has hardly surpassed the images which 
Proclus poured forth in lavish profusion in honor of 
the Mother of God. “Earth and sea did homage 
to the Virgin, the sea smoothing its serene waters, 
earth conducting the secure travellers who thronged 
to her festival. Nature exulted, and womankind was 
glorified.” “We are assembled in honor of the 
Mother of God” (the appellation condemned by Nes- 
torius) ; ‘ the spotless treasure-house of virginity ; the 
spiritual paradise of the second Adam; the workshop, 
in which the two natures were annealed together ; the 
bridal chamber in which the Word wedded the flesh ; 
the living bush of nature, which was unharmed by 
the fire of the divine birth; the light cloud which 
bore Him which sate between the Cherubim; the 
stainless fleece, bathed in the dews of Heaven, with 
which the Shepherd clothed his sheep ; the handmaid 
and the mother, the Virgin and Heaven; ” —and so 
on through a wild labyrinth of untranslatable meta- 


an imperial law of the utmost severity against all heretics: Ego, certe 
legem inter ipsa mez ordinationis initia contra eos, qui Christum purum 
hominem dicunt, et contra reliquas hxreses innovavi. Mansi, ν. 731 or 763. 
For the Law, see Cod. Theodos. de Hxret. Vincentius Lirinensis writes 
of Nestorius, Ut uni heresi aditum patefaceret, cunctarum hereseon blas- 
phemias insectabatur.—Commonit. c. 16. Nestorius was in character a 
monk, without humility. ‘Give me (such is the speech ascribed to him as 
addressed to the Emperor) a world freed from heresy, and I will give you 
the kingdom of heaven. Aid me in subduing the heretics, I will aid you 
in routing the Persians.’ 


VoL. 1. 14 


910 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book II 


phor.! The cloudy opening cleared off into something 
like argument; it became an elaborate reply to Nes- 
torius, the declaration of war from one who felt his 
strength in the popular feeling. 

But the war was not confined to Constantinople ; 
Gyril of it involved the whole East. Now rushed 
Alexandria. forward an adversary far more formidable 
in station, in ability, in that character for Christian 
orthodoxy of doctrine which then hallowed every act, 
even every crime, but from which true Christianity 
would avert its sight in shame and anguish, that such 
a champion should be accepted as the representative 
of the Gospel of peace and love. Cyril of Alexan- 
dria, to those who esteem the stern and uncompro- 
mising assertion of certain Christian tenets the one 
paramount Christian virtue, may be the hero, even 
the saint: but while ambition, intrigue, arrogance, 
rapacity, and violence are proscribed as unchristian 
means —barbarity, persecution, bloodshed as unholy 
and unevangelic wickednesses — posterity will condemn 
the orthodox Cyril as one of the worst of heretics 
against the spirit of the Gospel. Who would not 
meet the judgment of the Divine Redeemer loaded 
with the errors of Nestorius, rather than with the 
barbarities of Cyril ? 

Cyril was the nephew of Theophilus, Patriarch of 
Alexandria, the worthy successor to the see and to 
the character of that haughty and unscrupulous prel- 


1 This sermon of Proclus (to be found Labbe, Concil. sub ann.) is said, 
in the ancient preface, to have been delivered in the great church, in the 
presence of Nestorius. Nestorius appears to have answered this attack 
with moderation. In dieser ganzer Rede (the answer of Nestorius) herss- 
chet so viel Bescheidenheit, als gewiss in andern polemischen Schriften 
dieses Zeitalters kaum angetroffen wird. — Walch, p. 376. 


Crap. IIT. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. 211 


ate, the enemy of Chrysostom. Jealousy and animosity 
towards the Bishop of Constantinople was a sacred 
legacy bequeathed by Theophilus to his nephew, and 
Cyril faithfully administered the fatal trust. He in- 
herited even the bitter personal hatred of Chrysostom ; 
refused to concur in the general respect for his mem- 
ory, and in the reversal, after his death, of the unjust 
sentence of deposition from his see. He scrupled not 
to call the eloquent, and in all religious tenets and 
principles absolutely blameless Christian orator, a 
second Judas. The general voice of Christendom 
alone compelled him to desist from this posthumous 
persecution. Nor was Cyril content without surpass- 
ing his haughty kinsman in the pretensions of his 
archiepiscopate. From his accession, observes the ec- 
clesiastical historian of the time, the bishops of Alex- 
andria aspired, far beyond the limits of the sacerdotal 
power, to rule with sovereign authority.2 They con- 
fronted, and, as will appear, contended on equal terms 
and with the same weapons, against the Imperial 
magistracy.” 

The first act of Cyril’s episcopacy was that of a 
persecutor. He closed the churches of the cyris perse- 
Novatians, seized and confiscated all their Sapna 

The Nova- 
sacred treasures, and stripped the bishop of tians. 
all his possessions. The war which he commenced 
against the heretics he continued against the Jews and 
heathens. But the numerous and wealthy ‘the Jews. 
Jews of Alexandria, who multiplied as fast as they 


1 Kpist. ad Attic. apud Labbe, 204. j 

2 Καὶ γὰρ ἐξ ἐκεινοὺ 4 ἐπισκόπη ᾿Αλεξανδρείας, παρά τῆς ἱερατικῆς τάξεως 
καταδυναστεύειν τῶν πραγμάτων ἔλαβε τὴν ἀρχὴν. Socrat. H. E. vii. 7. 

8 Tbid. loc. cit. 


912 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IL 


were diminished by their own feuds or feuds with 
the Christians, were not to be oppressed so easily 
as a small and unpopular sect of Christians. Cyril 
must have been well acquainted with the fierce and 
violent temperament of the Alexandrian populace, 
and with their proverbial character, that their fac- 
tions never ended without bloodshed! But Cyril 
had himself too much of the hot Egyptian blood in 
his veins; and the bishop, instead of allaying this 
sanguinary propensity by the gentle and humanizing 
influences of Christianity, was rarely the last to raise 
the banner of strife, never the first to lay it down, 
never laid it down until his enemies were prostrate 
at his feet. Both Jews and Christians in Alexandria 
had so far departed from the primitive habits of their 
religion, that their most frequent and dangerous col- 
lisions took place in the theatre; and the drama, in 
its noblest form a part of the pagan religion, had now 
degenerated into such immodest or savage exhibitions, 
or in itself gave rise to such maddening factions that, 
instead of allaying hostile feelings by the common 
amusement and hilarity, it inflamed them to fiercer 
animosity.2. The contested merits of a pantomimic 
actor now exasperated the mutual hatred of the re- 
ligious parties. Orestes, the prefect of the city, deter- 
mined to suppress these tumults, and ordered strict 
police regulations to that effect to be hung up in the 
theatre. Certain partisans of the archbishop entered 
the theatre, with the innocent design, it is said, of 

1 Aiya yap αἵματος ob παύεται τῆς ὄρμης. Socrat. vii. 13. 

2 These entertainments usually took place on the Jewish Sabbath, and 
on that idle day the theatre was thronged with Jews, who preferred this 


profane amusement to the holy worship of their Synagogue. — Hist. of 
Jews, iii. 199. 


Cnap. III. CYRIL’S PERSECUTIONS. 213 


reading this proclamation. Among these was one 
Hierax, a low schoolmaster, a man conspicuous as an 
admirer of Cyril, whom he was wont (according to 
common usage in the church) to applaud vehemently 
whenever he preached. From what cause is not quite 
clear, the Jews supposed themselves insulted by the 
presence of Hierax ;! they raised a violent outcry that 
the man was there only to stir up a tumult. Orestes, 
jealous, it is said, of the archbishop on account of 
his encroachments on the civil authority, sided with 
the Jews, ordered Hierax to be seized as a disturber 
of the peace and publicly scourged. The archbishop 
sent for the principal Jews, and threatened them with 
exemplary vengeance, if they did not cause all tumults 
against the Christians to cease. The Jews determined 
to anticipate the menace of their adversaries. Having 
put on rings of palm bark, in order to distinguish each 
other in the dark, they suddenly, at the dead of night, 
raised a cry that the great church, called that of Alex- 
ander, was on fire. The Christians rose and rushed 
from all quarters to save the church. The Jews fell 
upon them and massacred on all sides. When day 
dawned, the cause of the uproar was manifest. The 
archbishop placed himself at the head of a formidable 
force, attacked the synagogue of the Jews, expelled 
the whole race, no doubt not without much bloodshed, 
from the city, and allowed the populace to pillage all 
their vast wealth. The Jews, who from the time of 
Alexander had inhabited the city, were thus cast forth 


1 My suggestion, in a former work, that these regulations might have 
appointed different days for the different races of the people to attend the 
theatre, would make the story more clear. The excuse which Socrates 
suggests for the presence of Hierax implies that he had no business there. 


914 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I 


naked and outraged from its walls. The strong part 
which Orestes took against the archbishop, and his 
regret at the expulsion of so many thriving and opu- 
lent Jews from the city, warrant the suspicion that 
their rising was not without great provocation. Both 
parties sent representations to the Emperor: in the 
interval Cyril was compelled by the people of Alex- 
andria to make overtures of reconciliation! On one 
occasion he went forth to meet Orestes with the Gospel 
in his hand: the prefect, probably supposing that he had 
not much of its spirit in his heart, refused his advances. 

The monks of the Nitrian desert had already been 
Monks op employed in the persecutions by Theophilus. 
ai These fiery champions of the Church took 
arms, to the number of five hundred, and poured into 
the city to strengthen the faction of the patriarch. 
They surrounded the chariot of the prefect, insulted 
him, and heaped on him the opprobrious names of 
heathen and idolater. The prefect protested, but in 
vain, that he had been baptized by Atticus, Bishop of 
Constantinople. One of these monks, named Ammo- 
nius, hurled a great stone and struck him on the head ; 
the blood gushed forth, and his affrighted attendants 
fled on all sides. But the character of Orestes stood 
high with the people. The Alexandrians rose in de- 
fence of their magistrate; the monks were driven 
from the city ; Ammonius seized, tortured, and put to 
death. Cyril commanded his body to be taken up: 
the honors of a Christian martyr were prostituted on 
this insolent ruffian; his panegyric was pronounced in 
the Church, and he was named Thaumasius, the Won- 


1 ποῦτο yap 6 λαὸς τῶν ᾿Αλεξανδρέων abrov ποιεῖν κατηνάγκαζεν. 
Socrat. loc. cit. 


Cuap. III. HYPATIA. 915 


derful. But the more Christian of the Christians were 
shocked at the conduct of the Archbishop. Cyril was 
for once ashamed, and glad to bury the affair in ob- 
livion. 

But before long his adherents were guilty of a more 
atrocious and an unprovoked crime, of the guilt of which 
a deep suspicion attached to Cyril. All Alexandria re- 
spected, honored, took pride in the celebrated Hypatia. 
Hypatia. She was a woman of extraordinary learn- 
ing; in her was centered the lingering knowledge of 
that Alexandrian Platonism cultivated by Plotinus and 
his school. Her beauty was equal to her learning; 
her modesty commended both. She mingled freely 
with the philosophers without suspicion to her lofty 
and unblemished character. Hypatia lived in great 
intimacy with the prefect Orestes; the only charge 
whispered against her was that she encouraged him 
in his hostility to the patriarch. Cyril, on the other 
hand, is said not to have been superior to an unworthy 
jealousy at the greater concourse of hearers to the lec- 
tures of the elegant Platonist than to his own ser- 
mons.!_ Some of Cyril’s ferocious partisans seized this 
woman, dragged her from her chariot, and with the 
most revolting indecency tore her clothes off, and then 
rent her limb from limb.2. The Christians of Alexan- 
dria did this, professing to be actuated by Christian 
zeal in the cause of a Christian prelate. No wonder, 
in the words of the ecclesiastical historian, that by 
such a deed a deep stain was fixed on Cyril and the 
Church of Alexandria.® 


1 Socrates, H. E. vii. 13. 2Damascius apud Suidam. 
8 Τοῦτο ob μικρὸν μῶμον Κυρίλλῳ, καὶ τῇ ᾿Αλεξανόρεων ἐκκλησία elpya- 
πατο. Socrat. loc. cit. 


210 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II 


It was this man who now stood forth as the head 
and representative of Eastern Christendom, the assertor 
Cyril against Of pure Christian doctrine, the antagonist of 
Nestorius. heresy on the episcopal throne of Constan- 
tinople. Cyril was not blind to the advantage offered 
by this opportunity of humiliating or crushing by this 
odious imputation the Bishop of the Imperial See, 
which aspired to dispute with Alexandria the primacy 
of the East. The patriarchs of Alexandria had seen 
the rise of Constantinople with undissembled jealousy. 
To this primacy Antioch, perhaps Jerusalem, might 
advance some pretensions. Ephesus boasted of her 
connection with St. John. But Byzantium had been 
a poor see under the jurisdiction of Heraclea; its claim 
rested entirely on the city having become the seat of 
empire. This jealousy had been, no doubt, the latent 
cause of the bitter and persevering hostility of The- 
ophilus towards Chrysostom. The more ambitious 
Cyril might now renew the contest with less suspicion 
of unworthy motives ; he was waging war, not against 
a rival, but against a heretic. 

The intelligence of the disturbances in Constantino- 
ple and the unpopular doctrines favored at least by 
Nestorius spread rapidly to Alexandria; the monks of 
both regions probably maintained a close correspond- 
ence. Cyril commenced his operations by an Easter 
sermon, in which, without introducing the name of 
Nestorius, he denounced his doctrines. He followed 
up the blow with four epistles, at certain intervals: 
one addressed to his faithful partisans, the monks of 
Egypt; one to the Emperor; one to the Empress 
mother, the guardian of her son; the last to Nestorius 
himself. The address to the Emperor commences in 


Cuap. III. CYRIL AGAINST NESTORIUS. 217 


an Oriental tone of adulation, the servility of which 
would have been as abhorrent to an ancient Roman as 
its impiety to a primitive Christian. The Emperor is 
the image of God upon earth: as the Divine Majesty 
fills heaven and awes the angels, so his serene dignity 
the earth, and is the source of all human happiness. 
This emperor was the feeble boy, Theodosius II. To 
the Empresses, the mother and the sister of Theodo- 
slus, as more worthy auditors, and judges better quali- 
fied to enter on such high mysteries, Cyril pours out 
all the treasures of his theology. In the letter to Nes- 
torius, who, it seems, had taken offence at the dissem- 
ination of the address to the Egyptian monks in Con- 
stantinople, Cyril states, with some calmness, that the 
whole Christian world, Rome, Syria, Alexandria, were 
equally shocked by the denial of the title “* Mother of 
God” to the Blessed Virgin.) This epistle was fol- 
lowed by a second, which called forth an answer from 
Nestorius. This answer, as well as the whole of the 
controversy, more completely betrays the leading no- 
tions which had obtained such full possession of the 
mind of Nestorius. The Godhead, as immaterial, is 
essentially impassible. The coeternal Word must be 
impassible, as the coeternal Father.2 The human 


1 Labbe, Concil. iii. p. 51. 

2Kai τὸν ϑεῖον ἐκεῖνον τῶν πατέρων εὐρῆσεις χορὸν, ob τὴν ὁμοούσιον 
ϑεότητα παϑητὴν εἰρήκοτα, ovde ἀναστᾶσαν τὸν λελυμένον ναὸν ἀναστῆσαν- 
ta. Epist. Nestor., apud Labbe, p. 821. Tov γὰρ ἐν τοῖς πρώτοις ἀπαϑῆ, 
κηρύχϑεντα, καὶ δευτέρας γεννήσεως ἄδεκτον, πάλιν παϑητὸν, καὶ vEdKTLO- 
τον οὐκ bw’ ὅπως εἴσηγεν, p. 822. This is throughout the point at issue. 
Compare the third part (in the Concil. Labbe) containing the twelve chap- 
ters of Cyril, the objections of the Oriental prelates, and the apology of 
Cyril for each separate chapter. The one party contend against the passi- 
bility, the mutability of the Godhead; Christ being God, is ἀπαϑὴς καὶ 
wvaddoiwroc. The flesh, which endured all the passion and the change, 


918 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


nature was the temple in which dwelt the serene and 
impassive Divinity. ‘To degrade the Divinity to the 
brute and material processes of gestation, birth, pas- 
sion, death, the inalienable accidents of the flesh and 
the flesh alone, was pure heathenism, or a heresy worse 
than that of Arius or Apollinaris. Cyril himself is 
driven by this difficulty to the very verge of Nestorian 
opinions, and to admit that the Godhead cannot prop- 
erly be asserted to have suffered wounds and death." 
But throughout this age the strong repulsive power of 
religious difference subdues the feebler attractive force 
of conciliation and peace. The epistolary altercation 
between Cyril and Nestorius grew fiercer, and with 
less hope of reconcilement. Nestorius, though he 
might not foresee the formidable confederacy which 
was organizing itself against him, might yet have 
known on what dangerous ground he stood even in 
State of Con. Constantinople. The clergy of both factions, 
stantinople. Who had engaged in the strife for the ad- 
vancement of Philippus or of Proclus, the rivals of 
the ruling archbishop for the see, mutually indignant 
at the intrusion of a stranger, were already combined 
in hatred towards Nestorius. All the monks were 
furious partisans of the ‘ Mother of God.” Against 


was intimately connected with the Deity; was its pavilion, its dwelling- 
place; and this may explain ‘“‘The Word became Flesh.’”” Compare pp. 
844, 881, 892. 

1Cyril was reduced to the expression ἀπαϑῶς ἔπαϑε. We find, too, 
this remarkable passage: οὐχ ὅτι πάντως αὑτὸς ὁ ἐκ ϑεοῦ κατὰ φυσὶν 
γεννηϑεὶς λόγος ἀπέϑανεν, ἤ ἐνύχϑη τῇ λόγχῃ εἰς τὴν πλευράν, ποίαν γὰρ 
ἔχει, εἴπε μοι, πλευρὰν τὸ ἀσώματον, ἤ πῶς ἄν ἀπέϑανεν ἢ ζωὴ" ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι ἐνω- 
ϑεὶς τῇ σαρκὶ, εἶτα πασχούσης ἀυτῆς, ὡς τοῦ ἰδίου πάσχοντος σώματος, 
ἀυτος πρὸς ἑαυτὸν οἰκειοῦται τὸ παϑὸς. In the Alexandrian Liturgy of 
S. Gregory, this expression has been introduced, xa? παϑὼν ἐκουσίως σαρκὶ, 
καὶ μείνας ἀπαϑὴς ὡς Sede. Apud Renaudot, I. p. 114. 


Unap. III. BOTH PARTIES TURN TO ROME. 219 


this confederacy Nestorius could array only the preca- 
rious favor of the Emperor, the support of some of his 
Syrian brethren, his archiepiscopal authority, and the 
allegiance of some of his clergy. Nestorius rashly 
precipitated the strife. Dorotheus, a bishop of his 
party, in his presence pronounced a solemn anathema 
on all who should apply the contested appellation to 
the Virgin! A fiery and injurious protest? was im- 
mediately issued, professing to speak the sentiments of 
the whole clergy of Constantinople, and peremptorily 
condemning the bishop, as guilty of heresy, and com- 
paring his language to the unpopular and proscribed 
opinions of Paul of Samosata. It was read in most 
of the churches.? 

Both parties, Nestorius and Cyril themselves, could 
not but look with earnest solicitude to Rome, Both parties 
She held the balance of power. If the Rome. 
Bishop of Rome had been the most unambitious of 
mankind, he could hardly have declined the arbitra- 
tion, which was almost an acknowledgment of his su- 
premacy. Nothing tended more to his elevation in 
the mind of Christendom than these successive Eastern 
controversies, if considered only as affecting his dignity 
in the eyes of the world. The deeper the East was 
sunk in anarchy and confusion, the more commanding 
the stately superiority of Rome. While the episcopal 
throne of Constantinople had been held in succession 


1 The chronology of the events is not quite clear, but this seems to be the 
natural order. 

2 This protest preserves some of the expressions attributed to Nestorius. 
“How could a mother, born in time, give birth to him who was before the 
ages?’’ The word “ birth,” it occurred to neither party was used in di- 
rectly opposite senses. 

8 Compare the strong address of the monks to the emperor, p. 226. 


220 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IL 


by the persecuted Chrysostom, by the heretic Nesto- 
rius, as it was afterwards by Flavianus, who, if not 
murdered, died of ill usage in a council of bishops ; 
that of Alexandria by Theophilus, and his nephew 
Cyril, whose violence disgraced their orthodoxy; a 
succession of able, at least blameless, Pontiffs of Rome 
was now about to close with Leo the Great.! 

Each, too, of these Eastern antagonists for ascen- 
dancy was disposed to admit one part of the claims on 
which rested the supremacy of Rome. Alexandria, 
that of the descent from St. Peter: ancient and apos- 
tolic origin was so clearly wanting to Constantinople, 
that on this point the Roman superiority was undenia- 
ble. On her side, Constantinople was content to rec- 
ognize the title of Rome to superiority as the city of 
the Czesars, from whence followed her own secondary, 
if not coequal dignity as New Rome. 

Celestine, of Roman birth, who had held high lan- 
ee guage to the Churches of Africa and of Gaul, 
Celestine. 6 this present period was bishop of Rome. 

Nestorius was the first who endeavored to propitiate 
the Roman Pontiff. Some misunderstanding had 
already arisen between them concerning certain Pela- 
gians, the only heretics whom Nestorius was slow tc 
persecute; and whom, as if ignorant how obnoxious 
they were to Rome and the West, he had treated with 
something of Eastern indifference. He addressed to 
Celestine a letter, fully explaining the grounds of his 
aversion to the term “Mother of God.” This he 
wrote in Greek; it was sent into Gaul, to be correctly 
translated by the famous monk Cassianus.? 


1 Not immediate succession, but the succession of the greater names. 
2 Celestinus ad Nestorium. Walch rather throws doubt on this transla- 
tion by Cassian, p. 433. 


Cuar. III. MANDATE OF CELESTINE. 221 


In the mean time arrived the Deacon Posidonius 
from Alexandria, with an elaborate letter from Cyril,} 
which, with the Sermons of Nestorius, he had the 
forethought to send already translated into Latin. 
Thus the hostile representations of Cyril, though de- 
livered last, obtained the advantage of preoccupying 
the minds of the Roman clergy.” 

To them, indeed, the Nestorian opinions were utterly 
uncongenial, as to the whole of Western Christendom. 
They had not comprehended and could not compre- 
hend that sensitive dread of the contamination of the 
Deity by its connection with Matter: they were equally 
jealous of any disparagement of the Virgin Mary. 
Already her name, with the title of Mother of God, 
had sounded in hymns ascribed to St. Ambrose, and 
admitted into the public service. The Latin language 
was not flexible to all the fine shades of expression by 
which Nestorius defined his distinctive differences 
from the common creed. ϊ 

Still Nestorius was not entirely without hope of ob- 
taining a favorable hearing from Celestine. The first 
reply of the Roman was not devoid of courtesy. But 
his hopes were in a short time utterly confounded. 
A synod of Western Bishops, presided over , | 4a, 
by Celestine, met at Rome. The sentence 4%"*- 
was decisive, condemnatory, imperious. Celestine, in 
the name of the Synod, and in his own,? y,, ,aate of 
commanded Nestorius to recant his novel and Celestize- 

1 Posidonius was instructed not to deliver the letters of Cyril, if those of 
Nestorius had not been delivered to Celestine. —Statement of Peter the 
Presbyter, Concil. Ephes. in init. 

2 Nestorius bitterly complained of the misrepresentations of Cyril in this 
letter, by which he deceived Celestine, a man of too great simplicity to judge 


of religious doctrines with sufficient acuteness. — Irenxi Tragced. in Synodic. 
8 Φανερᾷ καὶ ἐγγράφῳ ὁμολογία. p. 361. 


229 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


unauthorized opinions in a public and written apology 
within ten days from the arrival of the monition: in 
Aug. 11. case of disobedience, he was to hold himself 
under excommunication from the Church.’ 

This haughty mandate to Nestorius was accompa- 
nied by an address to the clergy and people of Constan- 
tinople. It expressed the parental care of Celestine 
for their spiritual welfare, and announced the decree 
which had been issued against Nestorius by the Bishop 
of Rome. The Western Church would take no ac- 
count of any anathema or excommunication pro- 
nounced by the Bishop of Constantinople ; but having 
declared such anathema null and void, would continue 
to communicate with all persons under such interdict. 
And because the presence of Celestine in the East, 
however necessary, was impossible, on account of the 
distance by land and sea, he delegated his full power 
in the affair to his brother Cyril, in order to arrest 
the spreading pestilence.? 

The Syrian bishops alone, of those who, from their 
Bishops of Station and character, had weight in the 
Syria. Christian world, were yet uncommitted in 
the strife, Acacius of Berea, the Patriarchs of Jerusa- 
lem and of Antioch. Each party courted their sup- 
port. Cyril, with his usual activity, urged them to 
unite in the confederacy against Nestorius. Either 
from the sincere love of peace, or some clearer percep- 
tion of the principles on which Nestorius grounded 
his opinions, or some secret sympathy with them, 


1 Epist. Cyrill. p. 396. 

2 Καὶ ἐπειδὴ ἐν τηλικούτῳ πράγματι 7 ἡμετέρα σχεδὸν παρουσία avayKaia 
ἐφαίνετο, τὴν ἡμετέραν διαδοχὴν, διὰ τὰ κατὰ ϑαλάτταν καὶ γῆν διαστήματα, 
αὐτῷ τῷ ἁγίῳ ἀδελφῷ μοῦ Κυρίλλῳ ἀπενείμαμεν, μὴ αὑτὴ 7 νόσος ἀφορμῇ 
τῆς μακρότητος ἐπίτριβῇῆ. Epist. Cyril. p. 373. 


Crap. III. CELESTINE’S ENVOYS. 223 


these bishops endeavored to allay the storm. John of 
Antioch, in a letter full of Christian persuasiveness, 
entreated Nestorius not to plunge Christendom into 
discord on account of a word, and that word not inca- 
pable of being interpreted in his sense, but which had 
become familiar to the Christian ear: Rome, Alex- 
andria, even Macedonia, had declared against him. 
John required no degrading concession, no disingen- 
uous compromise or suppression of opinion. If his 
enemies were strong and violent before the correspond- 
ence had begun with Rome and Alexandria, how 
would their boldness increase after these unhappy let- 
ters! from Cyril and from Celestine! But the time 
for reconciliation was passed. Four bishops, Theo- 
pemptus, Daniel, Potamon, and Komarius, o.)..¢ine%s 
arrived in Constantinople, with the ultimate ἔασον ἦα 
demands of Rome and Alexandria. They °?!* 
entered, after divine service, the Bishop’s chamber, 
where were assembled the whole clergy, and many of 
the most distinguished laity : they delivered the letters 
to Nestorius. Nestorius received them coldly, and 
commanded them to return the next day for the 
answer. The next day when they presented them- 
selves, they were refused admission.? Nestorius as- 
cended the pulpit, and preached in sterner and more 
condemnatory language than before. Celestine and 
Cyril had demanded unqualified submission: Cyril 
had declared that it was not enough to subscribe the 


1 Τραμμάτων τούτων τῶν ἀπευκτῶν. Epist. Joan. Antioch. p. 898. Nes- 
torius had almost consented to yield so far as to assert that it was not so 
much the word itself as the abuse of it which was irreconcilable with his 
views of the Godhead. 

2 The account of this transaction is given by the Bishops Theopemptus 
and the rest. 


224 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


Creed of Nicea, without receiving the sense of that 
Creed according to the interpretation of the Bishops 
Nestorius Of the Church. The twelve articles of ex- 
fated Deeg, COMMunication were promulgated, by the 
480 zeal of the Bishop’s adversaries, throughout 
Constantinople. But Nestorius, unappalled, on his 
side launched forth his interdict; anathema encoun- 
tered anathema. Nestorius excluded from salvation 
those who denied salvation to him. For in the awful 
meaning which the act of excommunication conveyed 
to the Christian mind of that age, it meant total exclu- 
sion, unless after humiliating penitence, and hard- 
wrung absolution, from the mercy of the Most High, 
— inevitable, everlasting damnation. 

With stern serenity the enemies of Nestorius con- 
template these awful consequences; those of worldly 
strife they behold almost with satisfaction. Cyril ap- 
plies to these times the much misused words of the 
Saviour, — “ Think not that I am come to send peace 
upon earth: for I am come to set a man at variance 
against his father, and the daughter against her mother.” 
If faith be infringed —faith even in these minutest 
points — away with idle and dangerous reverence for 
parents ; cast off all love of children and of brethren. 
Death is better than life to the pious (those who ad- 
here to the orthodox opinions), for to them alone ἰδ 
the better resurrection.} 

The anathemas of Nestorius are not less remorse- 
Nestorius Jess. They also aim at involving Cyril in the 


excommuni- " . 
eates Cyril. odious charge of heresy. Throughout is man- 


1 Πίστεως yap ἀδικουμένης * * * ἐῤῥέτω μέν ὡς ἕωλος καὶ ἐπισφαλὴς ἡ 
πρὸς γονέας ἀιδὼς" ἠρεμείτω δὲ καὶ ὁ τῆς εἰσ τέκνα καὶ ἀδελφοὺς φιλοστορ- 
γίας νόμος. Cyril. Epist. p. 396. 


Cuap. III. INFLUENCE OF NESTORIUS. 225 


ifest the peculiar jealousy of Nestorius lest he should 
mingle up the Deity in any way with the material 
flesh of man. Christ was the Emmanuel, the God 
with us. The Divinity assumed at his birth the mortal 
form and attributes, and so became the Christ, the co- 
existent God and man. The Christ laid aside the man- 
hood, which he had associated to his divinity, after his 
death and resurrection. Accursed is he who asserts 
that the Word of God was changed into flesh. <Ac- 
cursed is he who disparages the dignity of the divine 
nature by attributing to it the acts and passions of the 
human nature which it assumed for the display of its 
Godhead. 

The secret of the undaunted courage shown by Nes- 
torius was soon revealed. He had still un- τε :sanence 
shaken possession of the mind of the Imperial ** ©" 
Court. The triumph of Cyril was arrested by an hu- 
miliating rescript from Theodosius. He was arraigned 
not merely for disturbing the peace of the world, but 
even that of the Imperial family. The rescript ad- 
dressed to Cyril, in unambiguous language, relates his 
haughty and dictatorial demeanor, reproves him as the 
author of all the strife and confusion which disturbed 
the tranquillity of the Church. In order to sow dis- 
sension even in the palace, Cyril had written in differ- 
ent language to his august sister Pulcheria, and to the 
Empress and himself. The same curious, restless, in- 
solent, and unpriestly spirit had led him to pry into the 


1 The anathemas of Nestorius are extant only in a bad Latin translation. 
It is curious to find the Syrian bishop, Acacius, urging that the poverty of 
the Latin language prevented it from forming expressions with regard to 
to the Trinity equivalent to the Greek. To ἐστενῶσϑαι τὴν “Ρωμαικὴν 
φωνὴν, καὶ μὴ δυνάσϑαι πρὸς THY ἡμετερὰν τῶν Τραικῶν φρασὶν τρεῖς ὑποσ 
τάσεις λέγειν. LEpist. Acac. p. 384. 

Vou. 1, 15 


226 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox Il. 


secrets and disturb the harmony of the Imperial family, 
as well as to confound the quiet of the Church, as 
though this confusion were his only means of obtaining 
fame and distinction.! 

Theodosius had already acceded to the universal 
Council or emand for a General Council. This alone, 
Ephesus. according to the opinion of the time, could 
allay the intestine strife which had set Rome and 
Alexandria at variance with Constantinople, divided 
Constantinople into fierce and violent factions, and 
appeared likely to renew the fatal differences of the 
Arian and Macedonian contests. The Imperial sum- 
mons was issued, and in obedience to that mandate 
assembled the first General Council of Ephesus. 

It might have been supposed that nowhere would 
aes Christianity appear in such commanding maj- 
Councils. esty as in a Council, which should gather 
from all quarters of the world the most eminent prel- 
ates and the most distinguished clergy; that a lofty 
and serene piety would govern all their proceedings, 
profound and dispassionate investigation exhaust every 
subject ; human passions and interests would stand re- 
buked before that awful assembly ; the sense of their 
own dignity as well as the desire of impressing their 
brethren with the solemnity and earnestness of their 
belief would at least exclude all intemperance of man- 
ner and language. Mutual awe and mutual emulation 
in Christian excellence would repress, even in the most 
violent, all un-Christian violence. Their conclusions 
would be grave, mature, harmonious, for if not harmo- 

1 Καὶ μὴ γεγονὸς (hostility in the Imperial family) ποιῆσαι βούλεσϑαι 
παντὸς, μᾶλλον ἤ ἱερεὼς: ὁρμῆς μέντοι μιᾶς Kal τῆς αὐτῆς προϑεσέως τά TE 
τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν, τά τε τῶν βασιλέων μέλλειν χωρίζειν βούλεσϑαι, ὡς οὐκ 
οὔσης ἀφορμῆς ἑτέρας εὐδοκιμήσεως. Sacr. Theodos. Imper. ad Cyrill. 


τ ἐς χα». 


Cuapr. Ill. INCONGRUITY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. ΘΟ 


nious the confuted party would hardly acquiesce in the 
wisdom of their decrees; even their condemnations 
would be so tempered with charity as gradually to win 
back the wanderer to the still open fold, rather than 
drive him, proscribed and branded, into inflexible and 
irreconcilable schism. History shows the melancholy 
reverse. Nowhere is Christianity less attractive, and, 
if we look to the ordinary tone and character of the 
proceedings, less authoritative, than in the Councils 
of the Church. It is in general a fierce collision of 
two rival factions, neither of which will yield, each of 
which is solemnly pledged against conviction. — In- 
trigue, injustice, violence, decisions on authority alone, 
and that the authority of a turbulent majority, decisions 
by wild acclamation rather than after sober inquiry, 
detract from the reverence, and impugn the judgments, 
at least of the later Councils. The close is almost in- 
variably a terrible anathema, in which it is impossible 
not to discern the tones of human hatred, of arrogant 
triumph, of rejoicing at the damnation imprecated 
against the humiliated adversary. , Even the venerable 
Council of Nicea commenced with mutual accusals and 
recriminations, which were suppressed by the modera- 
tion of the Emperor; and throughout the account of 
Eusebius! there is an adulation of the Imperial convert, 
with something of the intoxication, it might be of par- 
donable vanity, at finding themselves the objects of 
royal favor, and partaking in royal banquets. But the 
more fatal error of that Council was the solicitation, at 
least the acquiescence in the infliction of a civil penalty, 
that of exile, against the recusant Prelates. The de- 
generacy is rapid from the Council of Nicea to that 


1 Hist. of Christianity, ii. p. 440. 


228 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


of Ephesus, where each party came determined to use 
every means of haste, mancuvre, court influence, bri- 
bery, to crush his adversary; where there was an 
encouragement of, if not an appeal to, the violence of 
the populace, to anticipate the decrees of the Council ; 
where each had his own tumultuous foreign rabble to 
back his quarrel; and neither would scruple at any 
means to obtain the ratification of their anathemas 
through persecution by the civil government. 

Some considerations will at least allay our wonder 
at this singular incongruity. A General Council is not 
the cause, but the consequence, of religious dissension. 
It is unnecessary, and could hardly be convoked, but 
on extraordinary occasions, to settle some questions 
which have already violently disorganized the peace of 
Christendom. It is a field of battle, in which a long 
train of animosities and hostilities is to come to an 
issue. Men, therefore, meet with all the excitement, 
the estrangement, the jealousy, the antipathy engen- 
dered by a fierce and obstinate controversy. They 
meet to triumph over their adversaries, rather than 
dispassionately to investigate truth. Each is committed 
to his opinions, each exasperated by opposition, each 
supported by a host of intractable followers, each prob- 
ably with exaggerated notions of the importance of the 
question ; and that importance seems to increase, since 
it has demanded the decision of a general assembly of 
Christendom. Each considers the cause of God in his 
hands: heresy becomes more and more odious, and 
must be suppressed by every practicable means. The 
essentially despotic character of the government, which 
entered into all transactions of life, with the deeply 
rooted sentiment in the human mind of the supreme 


Cuape. III. COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 229 


and universal power of the law, the law now centred 
in the person of the Emperor, who was the State ; the 
apparent identification of the State and Church by the 
adoption of Christianity as the religion of the Empire, 
altogether confounded the limits of ecclesiastical and 
temporal jurisdiction. The dominant party, when it 
could obtain the support of the civil power for the exe- 
cution of its intolerant edicts, was blind to the danger- 
ous and unchristian principle which it tended to estab- 
lish. As the Council met under the Imperial authority, - 
so itseemed to commit the Imperial authority to enforce 
its decisions. Christianity, which had so nobly asserted 
its independence of thought and faith in the face of 
heathen emperors, threw down that independence at 
the foot of the throne, in order that it might forcibly 
extirpate the remains of Paganism, and compel an 
absolute uniformity of Christian faith. 

~The Council of Ephesus was summoned to srctine of 
open its deliberations at Pentecost ; the fifty Council, 4. 


431. Easter, 
days from Easter were allowed for the assem- Apt! 19; _ 
bling of the Prelates. days June, 7 


Candidianus, Count of the domestics, a statesman of 
high character, was appointed to represent the Emper- 
or in the Council. His instructions were, not to inter- 
fere in the theological question, the exclusive province 
of the Bishops ; to expel all strangers, monks and lay- 
men, from the city, lest they should disturb the proceed- 
ings; to maintain order, lest the animosities of the 
Bishops should prevent the fair investigation of the 
truth ; to permit no one to leave the Council, even 
under pretence of going to the Court ; to permit no ex- 
traneous discussions to be introduced before the assem- 
bly. Candidianus did not arrive till after Pentecost. 


230 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


Already, however, Ephesus had begun to be crowded 
with strangers from all quarters. Nestorius came ac- 
companied by not more than sixteen Bishops of his 
party. Cyril arrived attended by fifty Egyptian Bish- 
ops ; Memnon, the Bishop of Ephesus, a declared ene- 
my of Nestorius, had summoned thirty Prelates from 
Asia Minor. Nor were these antagonists content with 
mustering their spiritual strength; each was accompa- 
nied by a rabble of followers of more unseemly char- 
acter; Cyril by the bath-men and a multitude of 
women from Egypt ; Nestorius by a horde of peasants, 
and some of the lower populace of Constantinople. 
The troops of Candidianus, after his arrival, begirt the 
city ; Irenzeus, with a body of soldiers, was intrusted, 
by the special favor of the Emperor, with the protec- 
tion of the person of Nestorius. 

The adverse parties could not await the opening of 
the Council without betraying their hostility ; skirmish- 
ing disputes took place,! and no opportunity was passed 
of darkening the fame and the opinions of Nestorius in 
the popular mind. If Nestorius came under the fond 
hope of being heard on equal terms, and allowed to 
debate in a calm and dispassionate spirit the truth of 
his tenets, such were not the views of Cyril or of Ce- 
lestine. To them the Bishop of Constantinople was 
already a condemned heretic; the business of the 
Council was only the confirmation of their anathema, 


1 ᾿Ακροϑολίσμους τῶν λογῶν. Socrat. vii. 34. Joanne Antiocheno remo- 
rante * * * Cyrillus deflorationes quasdam librorum Nestorii faciebat, 
eum perturbare volens. Et quum plurimi Deum confiterentur Jesum Chri- 
stum, ego, inquit Nestorius, qui fuit duorum vel trium mensium nunquam 
confiteor Deum; qua gratia mundus sum a sanguine vestro, et ammodo ad 
vos non veniam. Liberatus, Chron. c. 5. This is a good illustration of the 
Latin misconception of the opinions of Nestorius. 


Cuap III. MEMNON OF EPHESUS. 231 


and the more authoritative deposition of the unortho- 
dox Prelate. With them the one embarrassing diffi- 
culty was whether, in case Nestorius recanted his 
opinions, they were to annul the sentence of excom- 
munication and of deposal, and admit him to a seat 
in the Council.! 

Memnon of Ephesus lent himself eagerly to all the 
schemes of Cyril. Nestorius was treated as 
a man under the ban of excommunication : 
all intercourse, even the common courtesies of life were 
refused. All the Churches of Ephesus were closed 
against the outcast from Christian communion. When 
he expressed his solicitude, if not to attend the morning 
and evening service, at least to partake in the solemn 
mysteries of that season, not merely was he ignomin- 
iously repelled from the Churches, even from that of 
the Martyr St. John, but the avenues were beset by 
throngs of rude peasants brought in from the country, 
and prepared for any violence, and by the Egyptian 
sailors from the vessels of Cyril. 

Pentecost had passed ; five days after arrived Juve- 
nalis, Bishop of Jerusalem, a prelate known 5,101 of 
to be hostile to Nestorius. But John of Jetslem 
Antioch, with the greater part of the Eastern Bishops, 
did not appear. The Patriarchs of Constantinople 
and of Alexandria were arrayed as parties in the cause : 


Memnon of 
Ephesus. 


1 Etenim queris utrum sancta synodus recipere debet hominem a se prie- 
dicata damnantem; an quia induciarum tempus emensum est, sententia du- 
dum lata perduret. This is from an answer to a letter of Cyril which is 
lost. Celestine’s reply to this question is perhaps studiously ambiguous. 
But the letter, as extant, is probably a translation. The secret instructions 
of Celestine to his legates (apud Baluzium, p. 381) show his intimate alli- 
ance with Cyril. — Labbe, Cone. p. 622. Compare Walch, p. 466. 

2 Epist. Nestorii, p. 565. Epist. ad Imper. p. 602. Epist. ad Senat 
$03. 


232 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IIL 


each charged the other with heresy. The Roman Pa- 
triarch of the West was not present in person: the 
Patriarch of Antioch, therefore, might seem necessary, 
if not to the validity, to the weight and dignity of the 
Council. Cyril and his partisans were clamorous for 
the immediate opening of the Council; the Bishops 
had been already too long withdrawn from their dio- 
ceses. Nestorius insisted on awaiting the arrival of 
John of Antioch and his prelates; Candidianus gave 
the weight of the Imperial authority for delay. The 
Emperor had required the presence of John of Antioch 
and the Eastern Prelates at the Council.1 Strong rea- 
sons were afterwards alleged by John of Antioch for 
his tardy arrival. His departure from Antioch had 
been arrested by a famine in the city, and daily msur- 
rections of the people on that account ; inundations 
had impeded his march.2— Many of the Bishops of his 
vast province were ten or twelve long days’ journey 
beyond Antioch ; they could not leave their cities be- 
fore Easter.2 Cyril himself had received a courteous 
letter from John of Antioch, stating that he had ar- 
rived within six stations of Ephesus ; that he was trav- 
elling with the utmost speed, but that the roads were 
bad ; they had lost many of their beasts of burden ; 
and some of the more aged Bishops had been unable to 
proceed at that rapid rate. 

Cyril, however, chose to consider the delay of the 
Bishop of Antioch intentional and premeditated, either 
in order to shield the guilty Nestorius from the anath- 
ema of the Council, or to escape any participation in 


1 Defens. trium Capitulor. Facundus, apud Sirmond Opera, ii. p. 607 
2 The epistle of John of Antioch to the Emperor. 
3 Evagrius, H. E. i. 3,4. Labbe, Concil. p. 448. 


Cuar. II. FIRST GENERAL COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 233 


such a sentence against one so well known, and for- 
merly at least so popular, in Antioch.! 

Only sixteen days were allowed to elapse by the 
impatient zeal (the noblest motive that can ΠΕΣ 
be assigned) of Cyril for the opening a Coun- πα 
cil which was to represent Christendom, to /%° 25. 
absolve or to condemn as an irreclaimable heretic the 
Bishop of the second capital of the world. On Mon- 
day the 22nd of June, in the Church of the Virgin 
Mary, (an ill-omened scene for the cause of Nestorius, ) 
met the Council of Ephesus.? 

The Count Candidianus, in a public report to his 
Imperial master, describes the violence, unfairness, 
even the treachery of the proceedings. No sooner had 
he heard that Cyril, Memnon, and their partisans were 
prepared to open the assembly, than he hastened to the 
Church. In the Emperor’s name, he inhibited the 
meeting; he condescended to entreaties that they 
would await the arrival of the Eastern Bishops; he 
declared that they were acting in defiance of the Im- 
perial Rescript. They answered that they were igno- 
rant of the contents of that ordinance. Thus com- 
pelled, and lest he should be the cause of popular insur- 


1 Cyril’s imputations against John of Antioch are inconsistent and con- 
tradictory. In one place he charges him with hypocrisy, and insinuates 
that he kept aloof to favor Nestorius (if the partisan of Nestorius, his pres- 
ence would have been more useful than his absence); in another that, con- 
scious of the badness of the cause of Nestorius, he kept aloof to avoid tak- 
ing any part in his inevitable condemnation: “Do what you will (πράττετε 
ἃ πράττετε), only let me not be personally involved in the business.” 
Compare Cyril’s Letter to the Clergy of Constantinople, p. 561, with the 
Epistol. Imper., p. 602. 

2 The effect of this arrangement may be conceived from the Sermon of 
Cyril (Labbe, p. 584), in which he lavishes all his eloquence in her praise, 
through whom (δι᾿ 7¢) ail the wonders and blessings of the Gospel, which 
he recites, descended on man. 


234 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IL 


rection and rebellion, Candidianus read the Rescript ; 
and concluded by solemnly warning them against their 
indecent precipitation. This was their object ; the read- 
ing the Rescript they considered as legalizing the Coun- 
cil; it was followed by loud and loyal clamors. The 
Count fondly supposed that these cries intimated obedi- 
ence to the Imperial command ; instead of this, they 
instantly commanded Candidianus to withdraw from an 
assembly in which he had no longer any place ; insult- 
ingly and ignominiously they cast out the representative 
of the Emperor. They proceeded summarily to eject 
the few Bishops attached to Nestorius ; and then com- 
menced their proceedings as the legitimate Senate of 
Christendom. 

The council consisted of rather more than one hun- 
dred and fifty bishops—about forty from Egypt, thirty 
from Asia Minor, several from Palestine with Juvenalis 
of Jerusalem, the rest from Thrace, Greece, the islands 
Crete, Rhodes, and Cyprus, and from some parts of 
Asia. Rufus of Thessalonica professed to represent 
the bishops of Illyricum.? The proceedings, according 
to the regular report, now that all opposition was ex- 
pelled, flowed on in unobstructed haste and unprece- 
dented harmony. Peter, an Alexandrian presbyter, 
who acted as chief secretary,? opened the business with 
a statement of the dispute between Nestorius on one 
hand, Cyril and the Bishop of Rome on the other. 
On the motion of Juvenal of Jerusalem was then read 
the Imperial convocation of the bishops. It was asked 


1 See the statement of Candidianus, pp. 589-592. In another place he 
says, “ A vobis injuriosé et ignominiosé ejectus sum.’’ —In Synodico. 

2 According to Nestorius, not only the Eastern bishops were expected 
but those of Italy and Sicily. 

3 Πριμμικήῆριος Νοταρίων. Primicerius Notariorum. 


Cura. III. CITATION OF NESTORIUS. 235 


how long a period had elapsed since the day appointed 
by the Emperor for the meeting ; Memnon of Ephesus 
replied “sixteen days.” Cyril then rose, and asserting 
that on account of the long delay (of sixteen days!) 
some bishops had fallen ill, and some had died, declared 
that it was imperative to proceed at once to determine 
a question which concerned the whole  sublunary 
world.!| The Imperial Rescript itself had commanded 
the prelates to proceed without delay. 

One citation had been already sent by four bishops, 
summoning Nestorius to appear before the gration of 
council. Nestorius had declined, not uncour- Neterivs: 
teously, to acknowledge the validity of the assembly 
before the arrival of all the bishops. A second and a 
third deputation of the same number of bishops was 
sent. The first reported that they were not permitted 
by the guard to approach the presence of Nestorius, 
but received from his attendants the same answer; the 
third that they were exposed to the indignity of being 
kept standing in the heat of the sun, and not allowed 
to enter the palace. 

The proceedings now commenced: the Nicene Creed 
was read, and then Cyril’s letter to Nestorius. p,.ccoaings 
The bishops in succession declared their full commence: 
faith in the creed, and the perfect concordance of 
Cyril’s exposition with the doctrines of the Nicene 
Fathers. Then followed the answer of Nestorius to 
Cyril. Cyril put the question of its agreement with 
the creed of Nicea. One after another the bish- 
ops rose, and in language more or less vehement, 
pronounced the tenets of Nestorius to be blasphemous, 
and uttered the stern anathema. All then joined in 


1 Ki¢ ὠφέλειαν ἀπάσης τῆς ὑπ’ οὐρανοῦ. p. 453. 


236 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


one tumultuous cry, ‘*‘ Anathema to him who does not 
anathematize Nestorius.”” The church rang with the 
fatal and reéchoed word, “* Anathema, anathema! The 
whole world unites in the excommunication : anathema 
on him who holds communion with Nestorius ! ” 

The triumph of Cyril ceased not here. The con- 
demnatory letters of Celestine of Rome to Nestorius 
were read and inserted in the acts of the council. Cer- 
tain bishops averred that of their personal knowledge 
Nestorius had not retracted his obnoxious doctrines. 
Then were read extracts from the works of the great 
theologians, Athanasius, Gregory, Basil, and others: 
many of these were of very doubtful bearing on the 
question raised by Nestorius ; they were contrasted with 
large extracts from his writings. A letter was read 
from Capreolus, Bishop of Carthage, excusing the ab- 
sence of the African clergy on account of the miserable 
desolation and the wars which afflicted the province, 
asserting in general terms their cordial adherence to the 
Catholic doctrine, and their abhorrence of heretical 
innovations. 

The Council, it is said, compelled by the sacred 
Decreeof | canons and amid the tears of many bishops, 
wouncil proceeded to deliver its awful sentence ;1 
Jesus Christ himself, blasphemed by Nestorius, (so 
ran the decree,) declares him deposed from his epis- 
copal rank, and from all his ecclesiastical functions. 
All the bishops subscribed the sentence.2 The whole 
of this solemn discussion, with its fearful conclusion, 
was crowded into one day! The impatient populace 

1’Avaykaiwg κατεπειχϑέντες ὑπό Te τῶν κανόνων * * * δακρύσαντες 
πολλακὶς * * Ἃ σκυϑρωπὴν ἀπόφασιν. Labbe, p. ὅ88. 


2 Above two hundred names appear. Some perhaps were added as con- 
curring in the sentence. 


Cuap. III. ARRIVAL OF SYRIAN BISHOPS. 237 


had been waiting from morn till evening the issue 
of the Council. No sooner had they heard the dep- 
osition of this new Judas, than they broke out into 
joyous clamors; escorted the Prelates with torches 
to their homes; women went before them burning 
incense. A general illumination took place. Thus 
did the Saviour, writes Cyril, proudly recounting these 
popular suffrages, show his Almighty power against 
those who blasphemed his name. 

Five days after arrived John of Antioch, and the 
Eastern Prelates; they were received with ave of 
great honor by Count Candidianus, by the Bishops. 
other bishops not only with studied discourtesy, but 
with tumultuous and disorderly insult.2 Nestorius 
kept aloof in judicious seclusion. These Prelates pro- 
ceeded to instal themselves as a Council, under the 
sanction of the Imperial Commissary. Their first 
inquiry was whether the former Council had been 
conducted with canonical regularity, and the sentence 
passed after dispassionate investigation. Candidianus 
bore testimony to the indecent haste and _ precipita- 
tion of the decree. But instead of calmly protesting 
against these violent proceedings, and declaring them 
null and void, as wanting their own concurrent voice, 
this small synod of between forty and fifty bishops,® 
rushed into the error which they had proscribed in 
others; with no calmer or longer inquiry, before they 

1 Cyril’s letter to the people of Alexandria. 

2 Compare, however, the statement of Memnon, a suspicious witness, 
Ἢ fas bishops did not all come with John; some were of those pre- 
viously assembled at Ephesus, who had refused to take part in the council. 
Their adversaries assert that some of them were deprived bishops, others 


not bishops at all. According to this statement John’s party did not 
amount to more than thirty. —Epist. Cyril. et Memnon. p. 6388. 


238 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book II. 


had shaken the dust off their feet,! they condemned 
the doctrines of Cyril, as tainted with Arianism, 
Eunomianism, and Apollinarianism; pronounced the 
sentence of deposition against the most religious Cyril 
(ecclesiastical courtesy held this appellation inseparable 
from that of bishop) and against Memnon of Ephesus ; 
and recorded their solemn anathema against the Prel- 
ates of the adverse Council.2-_ The sentence condemned 
not their heresy alone, but likewise their disobedience to 
the Imperial authority, and their impious violence in 
excluding the faithful from the holy ceremonies of Pen- 
tecost, their closing the churches, and besetting them 
with gangs of Egyptian sailors and ecclesiastics, and 
with Asiatic boors. The excommunication was pub- 
lished throughout the city with the solemnity of an 
Imperial proclamation. Cyril and Memnon launched 
a counter-anathema; and instead of abstaining, as ex- 
communicated persons, from the sacred offices, cele- 
brated them with greater pomp and publicity. 

In the mean time letters arrived from the Bishop of 
July 10. | Rome, Celestine. Cyril’s council reassem- 
Celestine, bled to receive them ; every sentence was in 
such full accordance with their views, that the whole 
assembly rose in acclamation. ‘The council renders 
thanks to the second Paul, Celestine; to the second 
Paul, Cyril; to Celestine, protector of the faith; to 
Celestine, unanimous with the council. One Celes- 
tine, one Cyril, one faith in the whole council, one 
faith throughout the world.”? The Bishops Arcadius 
and Projectus, with Philip the Presbyter, the legates 
of Rome, gave their deliberate sanction to the deposi- 


1 Cyril, Epist. ad Celestin. p. 663. 
2 Labbe, Concil. 599. 
8 Actio Secunda Concilii, p. 618. 


ὕπαρ. III. RIOTOUS PROCEEDINGS. 939 


tion of Nestorius. At another sitting it was reported 
that endeavors had been made to bring John of An- 
tioch, now accused as an accomplice in the guilt and 
heresy of Nestorius, to an amicable conference. Three 
bishops, deputed to him, had been repelled by the fierce 
and turbulent soldiery who guarded his residence. A 
second deputation had been admitted to his presence: 
he loftily refused to enter into negotiations with excom- 
municated persons. On this report the council pro- 
ceeded to annul all the decrees of John and his synod. 
Having thrice cited him to appear, they declared John 
of Antioch deposed and excommunicated, as well as 
all the bishops of his party.!_ Cyril was not idle in his 
more public sphere of influence. He thundered from 
the pulpit against the bold man who had interfered 
in his triumphant conflict with the dragon of heresy, 
which vomited out its poison against the Church; he 
asserted that he was ready to encounter this new 
Goliath with the arms of faith.? 

Both parties were disposed to employ weapons of 
a more worldly temper. John of Antioch yiotent 
threatened the election of a new Bishop of °°" 
Ephesus in the place of the deprived Memnon.2 A 
peaceful band of worshippers according to one account, 
more probably an armed host, determined to force their 


way into the cathedral of St. John. They found it 


1 The Bishop of Jerusalem claimed jurisdiction, as of ancient usage, 
over the see of Antioch. —p. 642. 

2’Exijpev, ὡς dpac, ὁ πολυκέφαλος δράκων τὴν ἀνόσιον καὶ θέβηλον κεφ- 
αλὴν, τοῖς τῆς ἐκκλησίας τέκνοις τὸν τῆς ἰδίας ἀνοσιότητος ἰὸν ἐπιπτύων. 
“ This Goliath from the East shall fall by stones from the scrip of Christ; 
and what is the scrip of Christ? the Church, which contains many stones, 
elect and precious.’”’ This is a specimen of the Archbishop’s religious rhap- 
spdy. Homil. Cyril. p. 667. 

3 Labbe, p. 710. 


240 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


beset by Memnon with a strong garrison. Content, 
according to their own partial statement, with wor- 
shipping without the doors, they were retreating in 
peace, when the partisans of Memnon made a des- 
perate sally, took men and horses prisoners, assailed 
them, and drove them through the streets with clubs 
and stones, not without much bloodshed. } 

The court of Theodosius was perplexed with the 
Constanti- contradictory and doubtful reports from Eph- 
ee esus. Candidianus and the party of Nesto- 
rius jealously watched the issues of the city, that no 
representations from Cyril and his council should 
reach the imperial ear. Theodosius still maintained 
his impartiality, or more probably a minister favorable 
to Nestorius ruled in the court. An imperial letter 
arrived, written in the interval between the deposition 
of Nestorius and the arrival of John of Antioch,? 
strongly reproving the proceedings of the council, 
annulling all its decrees, commanding the reconsidera- 
tion of the creed by the whole assembly, forbidding any 
bishop to leave Ephesus till the close of the council, and 
announcing the appointment of a second commissary to 
assist the Count Candidianus. But all the watchful- 
ness of the government and of Nestorius could not in- 
tercept the secret correspondence of Cyril’s party with 
their faithful allies, the earliest and most inveterate 
enemies of Nestorius, the monks of Constantinople. A 
beggar brought a letter, announcing to them the glad 
tidings of the deposition of Nestorius, which the court 
had not condescended to communicate to the people. 


1 Their own despatches urged, and no doubt exaggerated, the contempt 
of the imperial authority, the lawlessness of the rabble at the command of 
Cyril and of Memnon. 

2 Tt was sent in great haste, by the imperial officer, Palladius. 


Cuar. III. EMPEROR’S RESCRIPTS. 241 


The court must be overawed; these spiritual dema- 
gogues would not await the tardy and doubtful ortho- 
doxy of the Emperor. 

Dalmatius, a monk of high repute for his austere 
sanctity, who, it is said, had in vain been solicited 
by the Emperor himself to quit his cell and inter- 
cede for the city during an earthquake, now, com- 
pelled by this more weighty call, came forth from his 
solitude. A vision had confirmed his sense of the 
imperious necessity. At the head of a procession 
of archimandrites and monks he passed slowly through 
the streets and sate down, as it were, to besiege the 
palace. Wherever he passed, the awed and wondering 
people burst out into an anathema against Nestorius. 

But the court did not as yet stoop from its lofty 
¢ictatorship in ecclesiastical affairs. A NeW ymperor’s 
Imperial Commissary, one of the highest Sepia 
officers of state, named John, appeared in Ephesus. 
His first measure was one of bold and severe impar- 
tiality, a vigorous assertion of the civil supremacy, 
humiliating to the pride of sacerdotal dignity. The 
Imperial letters sanctioned equally the decrees of each 
conflicting party, the deposition of Cyril and Memnon, 
as well as of Nestorius. John summoned all the 
Prelates to his presence. At the dawn of morning 
appeared Nestorius with John of Antioch. Some- 
what later, Cyril presented himself with the bishops 
of his party; Memnon alone refused to come. Here- 
upon arose a clamorous debate. Cyril and his bishops 
would not endure the presence of the heretical and 
excommunicated Nestorius. The divine and awful 
letters could not be read either in the absence of 
Cyril, or in the presence of Nestorius. The party 

VOL. I. 16 


242 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


of Nestorius and John as peremptorily demanded the 
expulsion of the deposed and excommunicated Cyril. 
The debate maddened into sedition, sedition into a 
battle. The Imperial Representative was compelled 
to use his military force to restrain the refractory 
churchmen, before he could read the Emperor’s let- 
ters. At the sentence of deposition against Cyril and 
Memnon, the clamors broke out with fresh violence. 
John, the Prefect, took a commanding tone; he or- 
dered the arrest and committal to safe but honorable 
custody of all the contending prelates. Nestorius and - 
John of Antioch submitted without remonstrance. 
Cyril, after a homily to the people, in which he 
represented himself as the victim of persecution, in- 
curred by Apostolic innocence and borne with Apos- 
tolic resignation, yielded to the inevitable necessity. 
Memnon at first concealed himself, and attempted to 
elude apprehension, but at length voluntarily surren- 
dered to the Imperial authority. 

The throne was besieged, and confused by strong 
representations on both sides. At length it was de- 
termined that eight deputies for each party should be 
permitted to approach the court, and stand before the 
sacred presence of the Emperor. In Constantinople 
this assembly might cause dangerous tumults: they 
Councilor met therefore in the suburb of Chalcedon. 
Chalcedon. On the side of Cyril appeared Philip the 
Presbyter, the representative of Pope Celestine, and 
the Western Bishop Arcadius, Juvenal of Jerusalem, 
Flavianus of Philippi, Firmus of the Cappadocian 
Cwsarea, Acacius of Melitene, Theodotus of Ancyra, 
Euoptius of Ptolemais. On that of the Orientals, the 
Metropolitans John of Antioch, John of Damascus, 


Cap. III. PULCHERIA. 243 


Himerius of Nicomedia; the Bishops Paul of Emesa, 
Macarius of Laodicea, Apringius of Chalcis, Theod- 
oret of Cyrus, and Helladius of Ptolemais. Though 
the Bishop of Chalcedon endeavored to close the 
churches on the Oriental bishops, and the fanatic 
Monks from Constantinople threatened to stone them,} 
the people, according to their statement, listened with 
absorbed interest to the eloquence of Theodoret, Bishop 
of Cyrus, and to the mild exhortations of John of 
Antioch. The youthful Emperor himself, when they 
taunted the adverse doctrine with degrading the God- 
head to a passible being, rent his robes at the blas- 
phemy.? The Oriental Bishops gradually began to 
separate the cause of Nestorius from their own. They 
insisted much more on the heresy of Cyril than on the 
orthodoxy of Nestorius. They accused him of assert- 
ing that the Godhead of the only begotten Son of 
God suffered, not the Manhood.? They protested that 
they would rather die than subscribe the twelve chap- 
ters of Cyril, in which the anti-Nestorian doctrine had 
now taken a determinate form; or communicate with 
a Prelate deposed by their legitimate authority. 

Other influences were now at work at the court of 
Constantinople. The masculine but ascetic mind of 
Pulcheria, the sister, the guardian, the Em- putchena. 
press, she may be called, of the Emperor, with her 

1“ Nam Constantinopoli neque nos, neque adversarii nostri intrare per- 
missi sumus, propter seditiones bonorwm monachorum.’’ — Epist. Oriental. 
ae the short but curious statement in Latin: —*“ Passibilem esse deita- 
tem. Quod usque adeo gravatim tulit pius rex noster, ut excuteret pallium, 
et retrorsum cederet pre blasphemiz multitudine.’’ — p. 716. 

3 'ῆς ἡ ϑεότης τοῦ μονογενοῦς Θεοῦ υἱοῦ ἔπαϑε, καὶ οὐκ 7 ανϑρωπότης. 


This they considered nearly allied to Arianism, as making the Son a 
created being. See the full view of their tenets in the Epist. Oriental. p. 740 


944 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


rigid devotion to orthodoxy and her monastic character, 
was not likely to swerve from the dominant feeling of 
the Church ; to comprehend the fine Oriental Spirit- 
ualism which would keep the Deity absolutely aloof 
from all intercourse with matter, as implied in his pas- 
sibility: least of all, to endure any impeachment on 
the Mother of God, the tutelar Deity, and the glory 
of her sex. The power of the Virgin in the Court of 
Heaven was a precedent for that of holy females in the 
courts of earth. To the Virgin Empress, in later 
times, the gratitude of the triumphant party of Cyril 
and of the West attributed the glory of the degrada- 
tion and banishment of Nestorius, and the discomfiture 
and dispersion of his followers. Still later, the Pope Leo 
addresses her as having expelled the crafty enemy from 
the Church: and her name was constantly saluted in 
the streets of Constantinople as the enemy of heretics. 

Nestorius was quietly abandoned by both parties. 
Nestorius Lhe secret of this change lies deeper in the 
abandoned. recesses of the Imperial councils. The Eu- 
nuch minister, who had been his powerful supporter, 
died ; he might, indeed, not long have enjoyed this 
treacherous favor, for the Eunuch had most impartially 
condescended to receive bribes from the opposite fac- 
tion also. When the Emperor ordered his vast treas- 
ures to be opened, confiscated no doubt to the Imperial 
use, a receipt was found for many pounds of gold re- 
ceived from Cyril through Paul, his sister’s son.? 

Nestorius was allowed the vain honor of a voluntary 

1“Quo dudum subdolum sanctz religionis hostem, ab ipsis visceribus 
ecclesie depulistis, quum heresin suam tueri impietas Nestoriana non pot- 
uit.””—§. Leon. Epist. 59. 


2 Epist. Acacii Berceens. ad Alexandrum Epise. Hierapol. Acacius heard 
this from John of Antioch. 


Cuar. 1Π. CYRIL IN ALEXANDRIA. 245 


abdication. From Ephesus he was permitted to retire 
to a monastery at Antioch. This monastery, of St. 
Euprepius, had been the retreat of his early youth; he 
returned to it, having endured all the vicissitudes of 
promotion and degradation. There he lived in peace 
and respect for four years. 

Cyril in the mean time had escaped or had been per- 
mitted to withdraw from the custody of the gyri in 
Imperial officers at Ephesus. He returned “"" 
to Alexandria, where he was received in triumph as 
the great Champion of the Faith. Thence, from the 
security of his own capital, almost with the pride of 
an independent potentate, but with the unscrupulous 
use of all means at his command, he directed the move- 
ments of the theologic warfare, which was maintained 
for three weary years with the Oriental Prelates. The 
wealth of Alexandria was his most powerful ally. 
While yet at Chalcedon, the desponding Orientals 
complain that their judges are all bought by Egyptian 
gold.'. But this fact rests even on more conclusive 
testimony. Maximian, a Roman, had been raised to 
the vacant see of Constantinople. His first measure 
betrayed his bearing. He commanded all the churches 
of Constantinople to be closed against the Oriental 
Bishops, who desired to pass over from Chalcedon to 
visit the capital, as being under the unrepealed ban of 
the Church. <A letter has survived, addressed by 
Cyril’s avowed agents to the Bishop of Constantinople. 
They urge the willing Prelate to endeavor to rouse the 
somewhat languid zeal of the Princess Pulcheria in the 


This is asserted in the letter of Theodoret of Cyrus: ‘‘ Nihil enim hine 
boni sperandum, eo quod judices omnes auro confidant.’ .. . “Sic enim 
poterit Agyptius omnes excecare muneribus suis.’’ — Epist. Legat. p. 746. 


240 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IL. 


cause of Cyril, to propitiate all the courtiers, and, if 
possible, to satisfy their rapacity.!_ The females of the 
court were to be solicited with the utmost importu- 
nity ; the monks, especially the Abbot Dalmatius, and 
Eutyches (afterwards himself an heresiarch), were to 
overawe the feeble Emperor by all the terrors of re- 
ligion, and by no means neglect to impress the Lords 
of the Bedchamber with the same sentiments. They 
were to be lavish of money; already enormous sums 
had been sent from Egypt; 1500 pounds of gold had 
been borrowed of Count Ammonius; and the wealth 
of the Church of Constantinople was to be as prodi- 
gally devoted to the cause. Ministers were to be de- 
graded, more obsequious ones raised to their posts by 
the influence of Pulcheria, in order to strengthen the 
pure doctrine, “the pure doctrine of Christ Jesus 12 

Theodosius, weary of the strife, dissolved the meet- 
gynoa or ing at Chalcedon, and thus the Council of 
Chalcedon 7 = oe 
cea Ephesus, which had assumed the dignity of 
4.v. 431. the third Ecumenical Council, was at an 
end. All, however, was still unreconciled hatred and 
confusion. The Oriental Bishops, as they returned 
home, found the churches at Ancyra and other cities 
of Asia Minor closed against them, as being under an 

1 Eunapius, the heathen, gives a frightful picture of the venality of the 
court of Pulcheria. See the new fragment in Niebuhr’s Byzantine histo- 
rians, p. 97. 

2The Letter in the Synodicon. The Latin is very bad; in some parts 
unintelligible. A few sentences must be given:—‘‘ Et Dominum meum 
sanctissimum abbatem roga ut Imperatorem mandet, terribili cum conjura- 
tione constringens, et ut cubicularios omnes ita constringat. . . . Sed de 
tua Ecclesia presta avaritie quorum nosti, ne Alexandrinorum Ecclesiam 
contristent. . . . Festinet autem Sanctitas tua rogare Dominam Pulche- 
riam, ut faciat Dominum Lausum intrare et Prepositum fieri, ut Chrysore- 


tis potentia dissolvatur, et sic dogma nostrum roboretur. Alioquin semper 
tribulandi sumus.”’ 


Cuap. ΠΙ. SYNOD OF TARSUS. IAT 


interdict. They met together, on the other hand, at 
Tarsus, and afterwards at Antioch, con- synod of 
demned the twelve articles of Cyril, con- AD. 4, 
firmed the deposition of Cyril and Memnon, and in- 
eluded under their ban the seven Bishops, their antag- 
onists at Chaleedon. Maximian ventured on the bold 
step of deposing four Nestorian Bishops. The strife 
was hardly allayed by the vast mass of letters ἢ which 
distracted and perplexed the world; there was scarcely 
a distinguished Prelate who did not mingle in the fray. 
Theodosius himself interfered at length in the office of 
conciliation. Misdoubting, however, the extent of the 
Imperial authority, which had so manifestly failed in 
controlling this contest into peace, he cultivated the 
more potent intercession of the famous Simeon Stylites : 
the prayers of the holy ““ Martyr in the air’ might 
effect that which the Emperor had in vain sought by 
his despotic edicts. John of Antioch and his party 
deputed Paul, the aged Bishop of Emesa, to Alexan- 
dria, to negotiate a reconciliation. Paul bore with 
him a formulary agreed upon at Antioch, the subserip- 
tion to which by Cyril was the indispensable prelimi- 
nary of peace. On the acceptance of this formulary, 
and the consent of Cyril to anathematize all who 
should assert that the Godhead had suffered, or that 
there was one nature of the. Godhead and the Man- 
hood, he and the Orientals would revoke the sentence 
of excommunication against Cyril. 

But Paul of Emesa, amiably eager for peace, and 
not insensible to the dignity of appearing a8 qreaty of 
arbiter between these two great factions, was P" 


1 They occupy page after page of the great Collection of the Councils. 
2 Tbas. Epist. ad Maron. in Synodico. 


248 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


no match for the subtlety of Cyril. Cyril was ill at the 
time of Paul’s arrival, and some time elapsed in fruit- 
less negotiation. At length, after an ambiguous assent 
to the formulary of Antioch by Cyril, a treaty was con- 
cluded, in which Paul unquestionably exceeded his 
powers. But no sooner were the terms agreed upon 
than the doors of the Alexandrian churches flew open, 
and the contending parties vied with each other in flat- 
tering homilies.! At first the Orientals were startled 
at what appeared the unwarrantable concessions of 
Paul: “it was a peace,’ in the language of one, 
‘which filled us with confusion of face and apprehen- 
sion of the just judgment of God.” 2 The more vio- 
lent of Cyril’s friends were equally displeased with the 
event. Isidore of Pelusium openly reproached him 
with his time-serving concessions and with the recanta- 
tion of his own doctrines.® 

After some further contest, the peace negotiated in 
Alexandria was ratified at Antioch. The Orientals 
yielded their assent to the deposition of Nestorius, the 
condemnation of his doctrines, and acknowledged the 
legitimate nomination of his successor Maximianus in 


1 See the three homilies of Paul, and one of Cyril. 

2 Epist. Theodoret. Cyren. ad finem. 

8 Isidor. Pelus. Epist. ad Cyrill. Facundus de Trib. Capit. xi. 9. Isidore 
of Pelusium was no friend of Cyril. From the first he saw through his 
character. During the Council of Ephesus he solemnly admonished his 
bishop in terms like these: “‘ Strong favor is not keensighted, hate is utterly 
blind: keep thyself unsullied by both these faults: pass no hasty judg- 
ments: try every cause with strict justice... Many of those summoned 
to Ephesus mock at thee (σε κωμωδοῦσι) as one who seeks only to glut his 
private revenge, and has no real zeal for the orthodoxy which is in Christ 
Jesus. He, they say, is the sister’s son of Theophilus, and follows the ex- 
ample of his uncle. As he manifestly gave free scope to his animosity 
against the God-inspired and God-beloved Chrysostom, so does this man 
against Nestorius,’ &c. &c. —Isid. Pelus. Epist. i. 310. See also the Le - 
ters to the Emperor Theodosius, 311, and to Cyril, 323, 324, 370. 


Cuap. III. TREATY OF PEACE. 249 


the see of Constantinople. On the other hand Cyril, 
though spared the public disavowal of his own tenets, 
had purchased, in the opinion of many, his restoration 
to communion with the Orientals by a dishonorable 
compromise of his bolder opinions. 

It was a peace between John of Antioch and Cyril 
of Alexandria, not between the contending κατ ποῖον 
factions, which became more and more es- ὅπ >t 
tranged and separated from each other. But the peace 
between John and Cyril soon grew into a close alli- 
ance, and John began to persecute his old associates. 
The first victim was Nestorius himself, now sunk to so 
low a state of insignificance as to expose him to the 
suspicion and hatred of his enemies, without retaining 
the attachment of his former friends. His obscure fate 
contrasts strongly with the vitality of his doctrines. 
By an Imperial edict, obtained not improbably by John 
of Antioch, who was weary of a troublesome neighbor, 
Nestorius in his old age was exiled to the Egyptian 
Oasis, as the place most completely cut off from man- 
kind, so that the contagion of his heresy might be con- 
fined to the narrowest limits. Even there he did not 
find repose. The Oasis was overrun by a tribe of bar- 
barous Africans, the Blemmyes. These savages, out of 
respect or compassion, released their aged captive, who 
found himself in Panopolis ; and, having signified his 
arrival and his adventures to the Prefect of the city, 
expressed his hope that the Roman Government would 
not refuse him that compassion which he had found 
among the savage heathen. The heretic reckoned 
too much on human sympathies. He was hastily de- 
spatched under a guard of soldiers to Elephantine, the 


very border of the Roman territory, and recalled as has- 
11 * 


250 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book II. 


tily. These journeys wore out his old and infirm body ; 
and, after a vain appeal to the court to be spared a fourth 
exile, which is mocked by the ecclesiastical historian as 
anew proof of his obstinacy, he sunk into the grave. 
But there the charity of the historian Evagrius does 
not leave him in peace: he relates with undisguised 
satisfaction a report that his tongue was eaten with 
worms; and from these temporal pains he passed to the 
eternal and unmitigable pains of hell.’ 

The three great Sees were now in possession of the 
λιν. 484.  anti-Nestorians. Cyril ruled in Alexandria ; 
Maximian had been succeeded in Constantinople by 
Proclus, ‘the ancient and inveterate antagonist of Nes- 
torius; and John in Antioch. But, besides the Nes- 
torians, there was a strong anti-Cyrillian party among 
the Orientals, the former allies of John of Antioch, 
who protested against the terms of the peace. They 
maintained the uncanonical deposition of Nestorius, 
though they disclaimed his theology : they asserted the 
unrepealed excommunication of Cyril. Alexander, 
Bishop of Hierapolis, declared that he would suffer 
death or exile rather than submit to Church communion 
with the Egyptians on such terms ; and declared that 
John must be lost to all sense of shame. On this prin- 
ciple the leading Bishops of nine provinces revolted 
against their Patriarchs, — the two Syrias, the two Ci- 
licias, Bithynia, Moesia, Thessalia, Isauria, the second 
Cappadocia. They even ventured to send a protest to 
Sixtus, who had now succeeded Celestine in the See of 
Rome, in which they inveighed against the versatility 
and perfidy of John of Antioch. But an edict, ob- 
tained by the two dominant influences in the Byzan 

1 Evagrius, H. E. i. 6. 


σπάρ. III. NESTORIANISM PROSCRIBED. 25] 


tine court, that of gold! and that of the Princess Pulche- 
ria, armed John with powers to expel the refractory 
Prelates from their sees; and John had no scruples in 
punishing that mutinous spirit which he had encouraged 
so long. Nor were: these Bishops prepared to sutter 
the martyrdom of degradation. Andrew of Samosata, 
Theodoret of Cyrus, Helladius of Tarsus, the leaders 
of that party, submitted to the hard necessity. It is 
probable, however, that the milder terms enforced upon 
them only required communion with John ; they were 
not compelled to give their formal assent to the depo- 
sition of Nestorius, or to withdraw their protest against 
the twelve articles of Cyril, or to repeal the anathema 
against him. Some, however, were more firm; Mele- 
tius of Mopsuestia was forcibly expelled from his city 
by a rude soldiery, and fourteen other Bishops bore 
degradation rather than submit to these galling conces- 
sions. 

At the same time that Nestorius was banished from 
Antioch, an Imperial edict proscribed Nesto- yestorianism 
rianism.2 The followers of Nestorius were Pe 
to be branded by the odious name of Simonians, as 
apostates from God; his books were prohibited, and, 
when found, were to be publicly burned ; whoever held 
a conventicle of the sect was condemned to confiscation 
of goods. But however oppressed in the Roman Em- 
pire, Nestorianism was too deeply rooted in the Syrian 
mind to be extinguished either by Imperial or by ecclesi- 


1“ Audivimus olim quod multum sategerit Verius, qui pro Joanne 
Constantinopoli latitat, et awrwn multum distribuerit aliquibus ut posset 
obtinere sacram, que nos cogeret aut communicare Joanni, aut exire ab 
ecclesiis: quod etiam veraciter contigit.’’—Meletii Epist. ad Maximin. 
Anagarb. 

2 Codex Theodos. de Heret. xvi. v. 66. 


54 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


astical persecution. It took refuge beyond the frontiers, 
among the Christians of Persia. It even overleaped 
the stern boundary of Magianism, and carried the Gos- 
pel into parts of the East as yet unpenetrated by Chris- 
tian missions. The farther it travelled eastwards the 
more intelligible and more congenial to the general sen- 
timent became its Eastern element, the absolute impas- 
sibility of the Godhead. Even in the Roman East it 
maintained, in many places a secret, in some an open 
resistance to authority.! The great Syrian School, 
that of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodorus of 'Tar- 
sus, the most popular of the Syrian theologians, were 
found to have held opinions nearly the same with those 
of Nestorius. Cyril and Proclus demanded the pro- 
scription of these dangerous writers ; but the Eastern 
Prelates, those of Edessa, and the successors of Theo- 
dore, indignantly refused submission. A new contro- 
versy arose, which was not laid to rest, but was rather 
kept alive by the new heresy which, during the next 
twenty years, confused the Eastern Churches and de- 
manded a fourth General Council — Eutychianism. 

4.0. 485. 440. Sixtus, the successor of Celestine, had 
Aug.1s. ruled in Rome during these later transactions 
in the East ; he was to be succeeded by one of greater 
name. 

1 Gibbon, at the close of his 47th chapter, has drawn one of his full, rap- 
id, and brilliant descriptions of the Oriental conquests of the Nestorians, 
from Assemanni, Renaudot, La Croze, and all other authorities extant in 
his day. Nestorianism and its kindred or rival sects retired far beyond the 
sphere of Latin Christianity; it was not till the Portuguese conquests in the 
East that they came into contact and collision. The very recent works of 
Layard and the Rev. Mr. Badger reveal to us the present state of the settle- 


ments of the Nestorians—the latter, their creed and discipline—in the 
neighborhood of. the Tigris and Euphrates. 


Cuar. IV. LEO THE GREAT. 2538 


CHAPTER IV. 
LEO THE GREAT. 


Tus Pontificate of Leo the Great is one of the 
epochs in the history of Latin, or rather of feo the 
universal Christianity. Christendom, wher- NE 
ever mindful of its divine origin, and of its Ae 
proper humanizing and hallowing influence, might 
turn away in shame from these melancholy and dis- 
graceful contests in the East. On the throne of Rome 
alone, of all the greater sees, did religion maintain its 
majesty, its sanctity, its piety; and, if it demanded 
undue deference, the world would not be inclined 
rigidly to question pretensions supported as well by 
such conscious power as by such singular and unim- 
peachable virtue; and by such inestimable benefits 
conferred on Rome, on the Empire, on civilization. 
Once Leo was supposed to have saved Rome from 
the most terrible of barbarian conquerors; a second 
time he mitigated the horrors of her fall before the 
King of the Vandals. During his pontificate, Leo 
is the only great name in the Empire ; it might almost 
seem in the Christian world. The Imperial Sover- 
eignty might be said to have expired with Theodosius 
the Great. Women ruled in Ravenna and in Con- 
stantinople, and their more masculine abilities, even 
their virtues, reflected a deeper shame on the names 


of Theodosius II. and Valentinian III., the boy Sov- 


254. LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


ereigns of the East and West. Even after the death 
of Theodosius, Marcian reigned in the East, as the 
husband of Pulcheria. In the West the suspected 
fidelity impaired the power, as it lowered the char- 
acter of Aétius; his inhuman murder deprived the 
a.v.430. Empire of its last support; and the Count 
Be Boniface, the friend of Augustine, in his 
fatal revenge, opened Africa to the desolating Vandal. 
Leo stood equally alone and superior in the Christian 
world. Two years before the accession of Leo, 
Augustine had died. He had not lived to witness 
the capture and ruin of Hippo, his episcopal city. 
αν. 445. The fifth year after the accession of Leo,- 
died Cyril of Alexandria; Nestorius survived, but 
in exile, his relentless rival. Cyril was succeeded 
by Dioscorus, who seemed to have inherited all which 
was odious in Cyril, with far inferior polemic ability ; 
afterwards, an Eutychian heretic, and hardly to be 
acquitted of the murder of his rival, Flavianus. This 
future victim of the enmity of Dioscorus filled the see 
of Constantinople. Domnus, a name of no great dis- 
tinction, was Patriarch of Antioch. In the West there 
are few, either ecclesiastics or others, who even aspire 
to a doubtful fame, such as Prosper, the poet of the 
Pelagian controversy, and Cassianus, the legislator of 
the Western monasteries. 

Leo, like most of his great predecessors and succes- 
sors, was a Roman. He was early devoted to the 
service of the Church; and so high was the opinion 
of his abilities, that even as an acolyte he was sent 
to Africa with letters condemnatory of Pelagianism. 
By the great African Prelates, Aurelius and St. Au- 


gustine, he was confirmed in his strong aversion to 


Lo 
ca 


Cuap. IV. ELECTION OF LEO. 


those doctrines, which might seem irreconcilable with 
his ardent piety. He urged upon Pope Sixtus the 
persecution of the ‘afohtnnate Julianus.! When Leo 
was yet only a Deacon, Cassianus dedicated to him his 
work on the Incarnation. At the decease of Pope 
Sixtus, Leo was absent on a civil mission, piection of 
the importance of which shows the lofty τεῦ 
estimate of his powers. It was no less than an at- 
tempt to reconcile the two rival generals, Aétius and 
Albinus, whose fatal quarrel hazarded the dominion 
of Rome in Gaul. There was no delay; all Rome, 
clergy, senate, people, by acclamation, raised the 
absent Leo to the vacant see. Leo disdained the 
customary hypocrisy of compelling the electors to 
force the dignity upon him. With the self-confidence 
of a commanding mind he assumed the office, in the 
pious assurance that God would give him strength to 
fulfil the arduous duties so imposed. Leo was a Roman 
in sentiment as in birth. All that survived of Rome, 
of her unbounded ambition, her inflexible persever- 
ance, her dignity in defeat, her haughtiness of lan- 
guage, her belief in her own eternity, and in her 
indefeasible title to universal dominion, her respect for 
traditionary and written law, and of unchangeable 
custom, might seem concentred in him alone.? The 


1“ His insidiis Sixtus Papa, diaconi Leonis hortatu, vigilanter occurrens, 
nullum aditum pestiferis conatibus patere permisit, et . . . omnes catho- 
licos de rejectione fallacis bestie gaudere fecit.’’ — Prosper. in Chronic. 

2“Etsi necessarium est trepidare de merito, religiosum est gauder2 de 
dono . . . ne sub magnitudine gratiz succumbat ee dabit virtutem, 
qui contulit dignitatem.’’ — Sermo 11. 

8 Nothing can be stronger than the Popes’ declarations that even they are 
strictly subordinate to the law of the church. ‘Contra statuta patrum 
concedere aliquid vel mutare nec hujus quidem sedis potest auctoritas.”’ 
Zos. Epist. sub ann. 417. ‘ Sumus subjecti canonibus, qui canonum pra- 
cepta servamus.’’ —Ccelest. ad Episc. Illyr. ‘‘Privilegia sanctorum pa- 


956 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IL. 


union of the Churchman and the Roman is singularly 
displayed in his sermon on the day of St. Peter and 
St. Paul; their conjoint authority was that double 
title to obedience on which he built his claim to power, 
but chiefly as successor of St. Peter, for whom and 
for his ecclesiastical heirs he asserted a proto-A postolic 
dignity. From Peter and through Peter all the other 
Apostles derived their power. No less did he assert 
the predestined perpetuity of Rome, who had only 
obtained her temporal autocracy to prepare the way, 
and as a guarantee, for her greater spiritual supremacy. 
St. Peter and St. Paul were the Romulus and Remus 
of Christian Rome. Pagan Rome had been the head. 
of the heathen world; the empire of her divine re- 
ligion was to transcend that of her worldly dominion. 
Her victories had subdued the earth and the sea, 
but she was to rule still more widely than she had 
by her wars, through the peaceful triumphs of her 
faith.. It was because Rome was the capital of the 
world that the chief of the Apostles was chosen to 
be her teacher, in order that from the head of the 
world the light of truth might be revealed over all 
the earth. 

The haughtiness of the Roman might seem to pre- 
dominate over the meekness of the Christian. Leo 
is indignant that slaves were promoted to the dignity 
of the sacerdotal office; not merely did he require 
trum canonibus instituta et Nice synodi fixa decretis nulla possunt impro- 
bitate convelli, nulla novitate violari.”” —S. Leo. Epist. 78: compare Epist. 
80. ‘Quoniam contra statuta paternorum canonum nihil cuiquam audire 
conceditur, ita si quis diversum aliquid decernere velit, se potius minuet, 
quam illa corrumpat; que si (ut oportet) a sanctis Pontificibus observantur 
per universas ecclesias, tranquilla erit pax et firma concordia.”’ — Epist. 79. 


1“Per sacram beati Petri sedem caput orbis effecta, latius praesideres 
religione divind quam dominatione terrena.’’ — Serm. ]xxxiii. 


Cuap. IV. ELECTION OF LEO. 257 


the consent of the master, lest the Church should 
become a refuge for contumacious slaves, and the es- 
tablished rights of property be invaded, but the base- 
ness of the slave brought discredit on the majesty of 
the priestly office. 

Though Leo’s magnificent vision of the universal 
dominion of Rome and of Christianity blended the in- 
domitable ambition of the ancient Roman with the faith 
of the Christian, the world might seem rather darkening 
towards the ruin of both. Leo may be imagined as 
taking a calm and comprehensive survey of the ardu- 
ous work in which he was engaged, the state of the 
various provinces over which he actually exercised, or 
aspired to supremacy. In Rome heathenism appears, 
as a religion, extinct; but heretics, especially the most 
odious of all, the Manicheans, were in great numbers. 
In Rome, Leo ruled not merely with Apostolic anthor- 
ity, but took upon himself the whole Apostolic func- 
tion. He was the first of the Roman Pontiffs whose 
popular sermons have come down to posterity. The 
Bishops of Constantinople seem to have been the great; 
preachers of their city. Pulpit oratory was their rec- 
ommendation to the see, and the great instrument 
of their power.2 Chrysostom was not the first, though 


1“ Tanquam servilis vilitas hunc honorem capiat. . . . Duplex itaque in 
hac parte reatus est, quod et sacrum ministerium talis consortit vilitate pol- 
luitur, et dominorum . . . jura solyuntur.”’ — Epist. iv. 


2 Sozomen asserts that it was a peculiar usage of the Church of Rome 
that neither the bishop nor any one else preached in the Church: οὔτε δὲ ὁ 
ἐπίσκοπος οὔτε ἄλλος τις ἐνθάδε ἐπ’ ἐκκλησίας διδάσκει. HH. E. vii. 19. 
‘This statement, defended by Valesius, is vehemently impugned by many 
Roman Catholic writers. Quesnel confines it to sermons on particular 
occasions. But the assertion of Sozomen is clearly general, and con- 
trasted with the usage of Alexandria, where the bishop was the only 
preacher. If this be true, the usage must have been subsequent to the 
beginning of Arianism, perhaps grew out of it. The presumption of 


VOL. I. 17 ἃ 


258 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


the greatest, who had been summoned to that high 
dignity, for the fame of his eloquence. From the 
pulpit Nestorius had waged war against his adver- 
saries. Leo, no doubt, felt his strength; he could 
cope with the minds of the people, and make the 
pulpit what the rostrum had been of old. His ser- 
mons singularly contrast with the florid, desultory, 
and often imaginative and impassioned style of the 
Greek preachers. They are brief, simple, severe ; 
without fancy, without metaphysic subtlety, without 
passion: it is the Roman Censor animadverting with 
nervous majesty on the vices of the people; the 
Roman Preetor dictating the law, and delivering with 
authority the doctrine of the faith. ‘They are singu- 
larly Christian — Christian as dwelling almost exclu- 
sively on Christ, his birth, his passion, his resurrection ; 
only polemic so far as called upon by the prevailing 
controversies to assert with especial emphasis the per- 
fect deity and the perfect manhood of Christ.1 Either 


ignorance or error in Sozomen arises out of the generality of his state- ἵ 


ment, that there was in fact no preaching in Rome. The style of Leo’s 
sermons, brief, simple, expository, is almost conclusive against any long 
cultivation of pulpit-oratory. They are evidently the first efforts o Chris- 
tian rhetoric—the earliest, if vigorous, sketches of a young art. Com- 
pare page 21. 

1 One class were what may be described as charity-sermons. At a cer- 
tain period of the year, collections were made for the poor throughout all 
the regions of Rome. This usage had been appointed to supersede some 
ancient superstition, it is supposed the Ludi Apollinares, held on the 6th of 
July. The alms of the devout were to surpass in munificence the offerings 
of the heathen. These collections seem to have replaced in some degree the 
sportula of the wealthy, and the ostentatious largesses of the Emperors. 
On alms-giving Leo insists with great energy. It is an atonement for sin. 
—Serm. vii. In another place, “‘ eleemosynez peccata delent.” Fasting, 
without alms, is an affliction of the flesh, no sanctification of the soul. 
There is a beautiful precept urging the people to seek out the more modest 
of the indigent, who would not beg: Sunt enim qui palam poscere ea, 
quibus indigent, erubescunt; et malunt miserii tacite egestatis affligi, 


_ .. 


Cuap. IV. THE MANICHEES. 259 


the practical mind of Leo disdained, or in Rome the 
age had not yet fully expanded the legendary and 
poetic religion, the worship of the Virgin and the 
Saints. St. Peter is not so much a sacred object of 
worship as the great ancestor from whom the Roman 
Pontiff has inherited supreme power. One martyr 
alone is commemorated, and that with nothing mythic 
or miraculous in the narrative —the Roman Lauren- 
tius, by whose death Rome is glorified, as Jerusalem 
by that of Stephen.! 

Leo condemns the whole race of heretics, from 
Arius down to Eutyches; but the more immediate, 
more dangerous, more hateful adversaries of the Ro- 
man faith were the Manicheans. That sect, in vain 
proscribed, persecuted, deprived of the privilege of 
citizens, placed out of the pale of the law by πε yani- 
successive Imperial edicts ; under the abhor- °: ὁ 
rence not merely of the orthodox, but of almost all 
other Christians; were constantly springing up in all 
quarters of Christendom with a singularly obstinate 
vitality. At this time they unquestionably formed a 
considerable sect in Rome and in other cities of Italy. 
Manicheism, according to Leo, summed up in itself’ all 
which was profane in Paganism, blind in carnal Juda- 
ism, unlawful in magic, sacrilegious, and blasphemous 
in all other heresies.2 It does not appear how far the 
Manicheism of the West had retained the wilder and 
more creative system of its Oriental founder; or, sub- 
dued to the more practical spirit of the West, adhered 


quam publica petitione confundi . . . paupertati eorum consultum fuerit et 
pudori.’’ — Serm. ix. p. 32-8. Leo denounces usury —‘‘foenus pecunie, 
funus animez.’’ — Serm. xvii. 

1 Serm. Ixxxv. 


2 Serm. xvi. 


260 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IL 


only to the broader anti-Materialistic and Dualistic 
tenets. But these more general principles were obnox- 
ious in the highest degree to the whole Christianity of 
the age. Where the great rivalship of the contending 
parties in Christendom was to assert most peremptorily, 
and to define most distinctly, the Godhead and the hu- 
manity of the Redeemer, nothing could be more uni-. 
versally abhorrent than a creed which made the human 
person of the Redeemer altogether unreal, and was at 
least vague and obscure as to his divinity: which m 
that Redeemer was clearly extraneous and subordinate 
to the great Primal Immaterial Unity. All parties 
would unite in rejecting these total aliens from the 
Christian faith! But Leo had stronger reasons for 
his indignation against the Roman Manicheans. 
Whether the asceticism of the sect in general had re- 
coiled into a kind of orgiastic libertinism, or whether 
the polluting atmosphere of Rome, in which no doubt 
much of pagan licentiousness must have remained, and 
which would shroud itself in Christian, as of old in 
pagan mysteries, the evidence of revolting immoralities 
is more strong and conclusive against these Roman 
Manicheans than against any other branch of this con- 
demned race at other times. The public, it might 
seem the ceremonial violation of a maiden of tender 
years, in one of their religious meetings, was witnessed, 
it was said, by the confession of the perpetrator of the 
crime ; by that of the elect who were present; by the 
Bishop, who sanctioned the abominable wickedness.” 
The investigation took place before a great assembly 


1S. Leo, Serm. xvi. and xlii. 
2#pist. ad Turib. xiv. Epist. viii. Rescript. Valentin. “Coram Senatu 
amplissimo manifesta ipsorum confessione patefacta sunt. 


ὕπαρ. IV. DIFFICULTIES OF THE AFRICAN CHURCH. 261 


of the principal of the Roman priesthood, of oct. 10, 448. 
the great civil officers, of the Senate, and of the peo- 
ple. We cannot wonder that the penalties fell indis- 
criminately upon the whole sect. Some, indeed, were 
admitted to penance, on their forswearing Manes and 
all his impious doctrines, by the lenity of Leo; others 
were driven into exile; still, however, no capital pun- 
ishment was inflicted. Leo wrote to the Jan. 444. 
Bishops of Italy, exhorting them to search out these 
pestilent enemies of Christian faith and virtue, and to 
secure their own flocks from the secret contamination. 
The Emperor Valentinian III., no doubt by the advice 
of Leo, issued an edict confirmatory of those laws of 
his predecessors by which the Manicheans were to be 
banished from the whole world. They were to be 
liable to all the penalties of sacrilege. It was a public 
offence. The accusers were not to be liable to the 
charge of delation. It was a crime to conceal or har- 
bor them. All Manicheans were to be expelled from 
the army, and not permitted to inhabit cities; they 
could neither make testaments nor receive bequests. 
The cause of the severity of the law was their flagrant 
and disgraceful immorality. 

If Italy did not fully acknowledge, it did not contest 
the assumed supremacy of the Roman See. Leo writes 
not only to the Bishops of Tuscany and Campania, but 
to those of Aquileia and of Sicily, as under his imme- 
diate jurisdiction. 

Africa was among the provinces of the Western 
Empire. It was a part of the Latin world — Africa. 
an indispensable part —as being now, since the Egyp- 
tian supplies were alienated to the East, with Sicily, 
the sole granary of Rome and of Italy. If the patri- 


202 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IU. 


archate of Rome was coextensive with the Western 
Empire, Africa belonged to her jurisdiction, and the 
closest connection still subsisted between these parts of 
Latin Christendom. Latin had from the first been the 
language of African theology; and of the five or six 
greatest names among the earlier Western fathers, 
three, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine, were of 
those provinces. In every struggle and in every con- 
troversy Africa had taken a leading part. She had 
furnished her martyrs in the days of persecution ; she 
had contended against all the heresies of the East, and 
repudiated the subtle metaphysics of Greek Christen- 
dom ; orthodoxy had in general triumphed in her de- 
liberations. By the voice of St. Augustine she had 
discomfited Manicheism ; and it was her burning tem- 
perament which, in the same great writer, had repelled 
the colder and more analytic Pelagianism, and made 
the direct, immediate, irresistible action of divine grace 
upon the soul an established article of the Western 
creed. Her councils had been frequent, and com- 
manded general respect; her bishops were incredibly 
numerous in the inland districts; and, on the whole, 
Christianity might seem more completely the religion 
of the people than in any other part of the empire. 
But the fatal schism of the Donatists had, for more 
than a century, been constantly preying upon her 
strength, and induced her to look for foreign interfer- 
ence. The orthodox church had, in her distress, con- 
stantly invoked the civil power. The emperor natu- 
rally looked for advice to the bishops around him, 
especially to the Bishop of Rome; and from the 
earliest period, when Constantine had referred this con- 
troversy to a council of Italian prelates, they had been 


CHar. IV. DIFFICULTIES OF THE AFRICAN CHURCH. 263 


thus indirectly the arbiters in the irreconcilable con- 
test. For even down to the days of St. Augustine, 
and beyond the Vandal conquest of Africa, the Don- 
atists maintained the strife, raised altar against altar, 
compared the number of their bishops with advantage 
to those of their adversaries, resisted alike the reason- 
ings of the orthodox, and the more cogent arguments 
of the imperial soldiery. The more desperate, the 
more fierce and obstinate the fanaticism. The ravages 
of the Circumcellions were perpetually breaking out in 
some quarter; the civilization which had covered the 
land, up to the borders of the desert, with peaceful 
towns and villages, so much promoted by the increased 
cultivation of corn, and which at once contributed to 
extend Christianity and was itself advanced by Chris- 
tianity, began to suffer that sad reverse’ which was 
almost consummated by the Vandal invasion. The 
wild Moorish tribes seemed training again towards their 
old unsubdued ferocity, and preparing, as it were, to 
sink back, after two or three more centuries, into the 
more congenial state of marauding Mahometan sav- 
ages. 

But Africa, notwithstanding the difficulties whicn 
arose out of these sanguinary contentions, and the con- 
stant demands of assistance from the civil power in 
Italy, conscious of her own intellectual strength, and 
proud of the unimpeached orthodoxy of her ruling 
churches, by no means surrendered her independence. 
If Rome at times was courted with promising submis- 
siveness, at others it was opposed with inflexible obdu- 
racy. Though Cyprian, by assigning a kind of pri- 
macy to St. Peter, and acknowledging the hereditary 
descent of the Roman Bishop from the great apostle, 


264 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book II. 


had tended to elevate the power of the Pontiff, yet his 
great name sanctioned likewise almost a contemptuous 
resistance to the Roman ecclesiastical authority. The 
African Councils had usually communicated their de- 
crees, as of full and unquestioned authority, not sub- 
mitted them for a higher sanction. The inflexibility 
of the African Bishops had but recently awed the 
Pelagianizing Zosimus back into orthodoxy. Some 
events, which had brought the African churches into 
direct collision with the Roman Pontiff, betrayed in 
one case an admission of his power, on the other a 
steadfast determination of resistance, which would dis- 
dain to submit to foreign jurisdiction. In the first, 
Augustine himself might seem to set the example of 
homage — opposing only earnest and deprecatory argu- 
ments to the authority of the Roman Pontiff! It was 
the African usage to erect small towns, even villages, 
into separate sees. St. Augustine created a bishopric 
in the insignificant neighboring town of Fussola. He 
Pebning appointed a promising disciple, named Anto- 
Fussola. nius, to the office. But, removed from the 
grave “control of Augustine, the young bishop aban- 
doned himself to youthful indulgences, and even to 
violence, rapine, and extortion. He was condemned 
by a local council; but, some of the worst charges 
being insufficiently proved, he was only sentenced to 
make restitution, deprived of his episcopal power, but 
not degraded from the dignity of a bishop. Antonius 
appealed to Rome; he obtained the support of the 
aged Primate of Numidia, by the plausible argument 
that, if he had been guilty of the alleged enormities, 
he was unworthy of, and ought to have been degraded 


1 Augustin. Epist. 261. 


ὕηαρ. IV. DIFFICULTIES OF THE AFRICAN CHURCH. 265 


from, the episcopal rank. Boniface, who was then 
Pope, commanded the Numidian bishops to restore 
Antonius to his see, provided the facts, as he stated 
them, were true. Antonius, as though armed with an 
absolute decree, demanded instant obedience from the 
people of Fussola: he threatened them with the Impe- 
rial troops, whom, it would seem, he might summon to 
compel the execution of the Papal decree. The peo- 
ple of Fussola wrote in the most humble language to 
the new Pope, Celestine, entreating to be relieved from 
an oppression, as they significantly hinted, more griev- 
ous than they had suffered under the Donatist rule, 
from which they had but recently passed over into the 
Catholic Church. They threw the blame on Augus- 
tine himself, who had placed over them so unworthy a 
bishop. Augustine confessed his error, and urged the 
claims of ae people of Fussola for redress in the most 
earnest terms. He threatened to resign his own see. 
The dispute ended in the suppression of the see of 
Fussola, by the decree of a Council of Numidia, and 
the assent of Celestine. It was reunited to that of 
Hippo. 3 

But the second dispute was not conducted with 
the same temper—it terminated in more Afiarius. 
important consequences. Apiarius, a presbyter of Sic- 
ca, was degraded for many heinous offences by his 
own bishop. On his appeal, he was taken under the 
protection of Rome without due caution or inquiry by 
the hasty Zosimus. Zosimus commanded 4.». 419. 
his restoration to his rank, as well as to the com- 
munion of the Church. The African bishops pro- 
tested against this interference with their episcopal 


rights. In an assembly of 217 bishops at Carthage, 


200 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IL. 


appeared Faustinus, Bishop of Picenum, and two Ro- 
man presbyters. They boldly produced two canons of 
the Council of Nicea, that first and most sacred legisla- 
tive assembly, to which Christendom owed the estab- 
lishment of the sound Trinitarian doctrine, and which 
was received by all the orthodox world with un- 
bounded reverence. These canons established a gen- 
eral right of appeal from all parts of Christendom to 
Rome. The Bishop of Rome might not only receive 
the appeal, but might delegate the judgment on appeal 
to the neighboring bishops, or commission one of his 
own presbyters to demand a second hearing of the 
cause, or send judges, according to his own discretion, 
to sit as assessors, representing the Papal authority 
with the bishops of the neighborhood.!| The African 
bishops protested, with exemplary gravity, their respect 
for all the decrees of the Nicene Council; but they 
were perplexed, they said, by one circumstance — that 
in no copy of those decrees, which they had ever seen, 
did such Canons appear. They requested that the 
authentic copies, supposed to be preserved at Con- 
stantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria, might be in- 
spected.2. It turned out, that either from ignorance 
in himself, almost incredible, or from a bold presump- 
tion of ignorance in others, not less inconceivable, the 
Bishop of Rome had adduced Canons of the Synod 
of Sardica, a council of which the authority was in 
many respects highly questionable, and which did not 
aspire to the dignity of a General Council, for the 
solemn decrees of the great Cicumenic Senate. The 


1“ Jatere suo Presbyterum” is the expression — probably heard for 
the first time in these canons. 

2 Habentes auctoritatem ejus a quo destinati sunt.’ — Labbe, Cone. ii. 
p- 1590. 


Cap. IV. DIFFICULTIES OF THE AFRICAN CHURCH. 267 


close of this affair was as unfavorable as its conduct to 
the lofty pretensions of the Roman Bishop. While 
the Africans calmly persisted in asserting the guilt of 
Apiarius, the Bishop of Rome, through his legate, 
obstinately pronounced him to be the victim of injus- 
tice. Apiarius himself, seized by a paroxysm of re- 
morse, suddenly and publicly made confession of all 
the crimes imputed to him —crimes so heinous and 
offensive, that groans of horror broke forth from the 
shuddering judges. The Bishop of Rome was left in 
the humiliating position of having rashly embarked in 
an iniquitous cause, and set up as the judge of the 
African bishops on partial, unsatisfactory, and as it 
appeared, utterly worthless evidence. The African 
bishops pursued their advantage, adduced the genuine 
Canons of Nicea, which gave each Provincial Council 
full authority over its own affairs, and quietly rebuked 
the Roman Prelate for his eagerness in receiving all 
outcasts from the Churches of Africa, and interfering 
in their behalf concerning matters of which he must 
be ignorant. They asserted that God would hardly 
grant to one that clear and searching judgment which 
he denied to many.!. Thus, in fact, they proclaimed 
the entire independence of the African Churches on 
any foreign dominion: they forbade all appeals to 
transmarine judgments.” 

But Africa had not to contest that independence 
with the ambition and ability of Leo. The long age 


1“ Nisi forte quispiam est qui credat, unicuilibet posse Deum nostrum 
examinis inspirare justitiam, et innumerabilibus congregatis in unum con- 
cilium denegare.”’ — Labbe, Concil. ii. p. 1675. 

2“Quod si ab eis provocandum putaverunt, non provocent ad trans- 
marina judicia, sed ad Primates suarum Provinciarum (aut ad Universale 
Concilium) sicut et de Episcopis sepe constitutum est.’ — Ibid. 


268 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IL. 


of peace, wealth, fertility, and comparative happiness 
which had almost secluded Africa, since the battle of 
Thapsus, from the wars and civil contentions of the 
Empire, and had permitted Christianity to spread its 
beneficent influence over the whole province, was 
drawing to a close. The Vandal conquest began that 
long succession of calamities —the Arian persecutions 
under Hunneric and Thrasimund, the successors of 
Genseric — the re-conquest by the Eastern Empire, 
and the internal wars, with their train of miseries, 
famine, pestilence, devastation, which blasted the rich 
land into a desert; silenced altogether the clamors 
of Christian strife still maintained by the irreclaim- 
able Donatists, and quenched all the lights of Chris- 
tian learning and piety; until, at length, the whole 
realm was wrested by the strong arm of Mahomedan- 
ism from its connection with Christendom and the 
civilization of Europe. 

The Vandal conquest under Genseric alone belongs 
pebiaikcot: to this period. The Vandals, until the in- 
Africa. vasion of the Huns, had been dreaded as 
the most ferocious of the Northern or Eastern tribes. 
Their savage love of war had hardly been mitigated 
by their submission to Arian Christianity. Yet the 
invasion of Genseric was at first a conquest rather 
than a persecution. The churches were not sacred 
against the general pillage, but it was their wealth 
which inflamed the cupidity, rather than the oppug- 
nancy of the doctrine within their walls which pro- 
voked the insults of the invaders. The clergy did 
not escape the general massacre: many of them suf- 
fered cruel tortures, but they fell in the promiscuous 
ruin: they were racked, or exposed to other excruciat- 


Cuar. IV. VANDAL CONQUEST OF AFRICA. 269 


ing torments to compel the surrender of their treasures, 
which they had concealed, or were supposed to have 
concealed. After the capture of Carthage, bishops 
and ecclesiastics of rank, as well as nobles, were 
reduced to servitude. The successor of Cyprian, 
“ Quod vult Deus,” (* What God wills,” — the Afri- 
can prelates had anticipated our Puritans in their 
Scriptural names,) and many of his clergy were 
embarked in crazy vessels, and cast on shore on the 
coast of Naples. Yet Genseric permitted the elevation 
of another orthodox bishop, Deo Gratias, at the prayer 
of Valentinian, to the see of Carthage. Valentinian 
might seem prophetically to prepare succor and com- 
fort for the Romans who should hereafter be carried 
captives to Carthage. 

During the later years of his reign Genseric became 
a more cruel persecutor. He would admit only Arian 
counsellors about his court. The honors of martyr- 
dom are claimed for many victims, perhaps rather of 
his jealousy than of his intolerance; for the Vandal 
dominion was that of an armed aristocracy, few in 
numbers when compared with the vast population of 
Roman Africa. He closed the churches of the ortho- 
dox in Carthage after the death of Deo Gratias; they 
were not opened for some time, but at length, at the 
intervention of the Emperor of the East, they were 
permitted a short period of peace, until the reign of 
Genseric’s more fiercely intolerant successors, Hun- 
neric and Thrasimund.! 

Gaul was the province of the Western empire, 
beyond the limits of Italy (perhaps excepting Gaul. 


1 Victor Vitensis, lib. i., with the notes of Ruinart, Hist. Persecutionis 
Vandalice. 


270 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


Africa), which was most closely connected by civil 
and ecclesiastical relations with the centre of govern- 
ment. But Northern and Western Gaul, as well as 
the two Germanies, were already occupied by ‘Teutonic 
conquerors, Goths, Burgundians, and Franks, and were 
either independent, or rendered but nominal allegiance 
to the descendants of Theodosius. Britain appeared 
entirely lost to the Roman empire and to Christianity. 
Her Christianity had retired to her remote mountain 
fastnesses in Wales, Cornwall, Cumberland, and to 
the more distant islands; it was cut off altogether 
from the Roman world. But in Gaul the clergy, at 
least the orthodox clergy, were as yet everywhere of 
pure Roman, or Gallo-Roman race: the Teutonic 
conquerors, who were Christians, Goths, Burgundians, 
Vandals, had not shaken off the Arianism into which 
they had been converted; and the Franks were still 
fierce and obstinate pagans. The Southern Province 
alone retained its full subordination to the Court of 
Ravenna; and the jealousies and contests among the 
Bishops of Gaul had already driven them to Rome, 
the aggrieved for redress against the oppression, the 
turbulent for protection against the legitimate authority 
of their Bishops or Metropolitans, the Prelates whose 
power was contested, for confirmation of their domin- 
ion. The acknowledged want of such a superior juris- 
diction would thus have created, even if there had 
been no pretensions grounded on the succession to St. 
Peter, a jurisdiction of appeal. Nowhere indeed can 
the origin of appeals be traced more clearly, as arising 
out of the state of the Church. The Metropolitan 
power over Narbonese Gaul was contested by the 
Churches of Arles and Vienne. The circumstances 


Cuapr. LY. ORIGIN OF APPEALS. 271 


of the times, the retirement of the Prefect of Gaul 
from Treves to Arles, the dignity which that city had 
assumed as the seat, however of an usurped empire, 
had given a supremacy to Arles. But neither would 
the metropolitan nor the episcopal dignity be adminis- 
tered with such calm justice as to command universal 
obedience. Severe discipline and strict adherence to 
the canons by the austere would excite rebellion, laxity 
and weakness encourage license. A remote tribunal 
would be sought by all, by some out of despair οἵ find- 
ing justice nearer home, by some in the hope that a 
bad cause might find favorable hearing where the 
judges must be comparatively ignorant, and propitiated 
by that welcome deference which submitted to their 
authority. Yet, though there are several instances of 
Bishops deposed, not seldom unjustly, by synods of 
Gallic Bishops, none had carried his complaint before 
the Bishop of Rome until towards the end of the fourth 
century! Priscillian appealed from the Council of 
Bourdeaux, not to the Bishop of Rome, but to the 
Emperor. During the Pontificate of Zosimus, Patro- 
clus, Archbishop of Arles, was involved in an implaca- 
ble feud with Proculus, Bishop of Marseilles.2. That 
degradation of Proculus which he could not «.». 886. 

inflict by his own power, the Metropolitan of Arles 
endeavored to obtain by that of Zosimus.? Zosimus, 


1 Quesnel, Dissertat. v. p. 384. 

2 Every point in this controversy has been discussed with the most un- 
wearied pertinacity by the advocates, —on one side of the high Papal su- 
premacy; on the other, by the defenders of the Gallican liberties. I have 
endeavored to hold an equal hand, and to dwell only on the facts which 
rest on evidence. There is an implacable war between the successive editors . 
of the works of Leo the Great, —the Frenchman Quesnel, and the Italians, 
the Ballerinis. 

8 Sulpic. Sever. 11. 


O72, LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


it appears to be admitted, was deceived by the misrep- 
resentations of Patroclus, and scrupled not to issue 
μου. 9, 422. the sentence of degradation against the 
Bishop of Marseilles. Proculus defied the sentence, 
and continued to exercise his episcopal powers. The 
more prudent Pope, Boniface, in a case of appeal from 
the clergy of Valence against their Bishop, referred 
the affair back to the Bishops of the province.? 

Under Leo, the supremacy of the Roman See over 
Gaul was brought to the issue of direct assertion on 
his part, of inflexible resistance on that of his oppo- 
nent. Hilarius, a devout and austere prelate, invested 
by his admiring biographer in every virtue, in the holi- 
ness and charity of a saint, a perfect monk and a con- 
summate prelate —(as a preacher, it was said that 
Augustine, if he had lived after Hilarius, would have 
been esteemed his inferior)— was Archbishop of 
Avrles.2 His zeal or his ambition aspired to raise that 
metropolitan seat into a kind of Pontificate of Gaul. 
He was accustomed to make visitations, accompanied 
by the holy Germanus of Auxerre, not improbably 
beyond the doubtful or undefined limits of his metro- 
politan power. During one of these visitations, 


1 Zosim. Epist. 12 ad Patrocl. 

2 Bonifac. Epist. ad Episcop. Galliz. 

8 The account of his election, by his biographer, is curious. He was 
designated as bishop by his predecessor Honoratus. He was then a monk 
of Lerins. A large band of the citizens of Arles, with a troop of soldiers, 
set out to take him by force. They did not know him: “spiritalis prada 
adstat ante oculus inquirentium, et nihilominus ignoratur.’”’” He is discoy- 
ered, but requires a sign from heaven. A dove settles on his head.—S. 
Hilar. Vit. apud Leon. Oper. p. 328. 

4“ Ordinationes sibi omnium per Gallias ecclesiarum vindicans, et debi- 
tam metropolitanis sacerdotibus in ‘suam transferens dignitatem ; ipsius 
quoque beatissimi Petri reverentiam verbis arrogantibus minuendo .. . ita 
sue vos cupiens subdere potestati, ut se Beato apostolo Petro non patiatur 


Cuap. IV. HILARIUS BEFORE LEO. OTS 


charges of disqualification for the episcopal office were 
exhibited against Celidonius, Bishop, according to some 
accounts, of Besancon. He was accused of having 
been the husband of a widow, and in his civil state of 
having pronounced as magistrate sentences of capital 
punishment. Hilarius hastily summoned a council of 
Bishops, and pronounced sentence of deposition against 
Celidonius. On the intelligence that Celidonius had 
gone to Rome to appeal against this decree, Hilarius 
set forth, it is said, on foot, crossed the Alps, and trav- 
elled without horse or sumpter mule to the Great City. 
He presented himself before Leo, and with a.v. 445. 
respectful earnestness entreated him not to infringe the 
ancient usages of the Gallic Churches, significantly 
declaring that he came not to plead before Leo, or as 
an accuser in a case of appeal, but to protest against 
the usurpation of his rights.!_ Leo proceeded to annul 
the sentence of Hilarius and to restore Celidonius to 
his bishopric. He summoned Hilarius to rebut the 
evidence adduced by Celidonius, to disprove the justice 
of his condemnation. So haughty was the language 
of Hilarius, that no layman would dare to utter, no 
ecclesiastic would endure to hear such words.2 He in- 
flexibly resisted all the authority of the Pope and of 
St. Peter; and confronted the Pope with the bold 
assertion of his own unbounded metropolitan power. 
Hilarius thought his life in danger; or he feared lest 
esse subjectum.’’ — Leo. Epist. This may have been stated by Leo under 
indignation at the resistance of Hilarius to his authority, and on the testi- 
mony of the enemies of Hilarius; but his biographer admits that the very 
humility of Hilarius had generated a kind of supercilious haughtiness; he 
was rigid, but to the proud, terrible, but to the worldly. — p. 326. 

1 “ Se ad officianon ad causam venisse; protestandi ordine non accusandi 
que sunt acta suggerere.’’ — Vit. Hil. 

2“ Que nullus laicorum dicere, nullus sacerdotum posset audire.’’ — Ibid. 

VOL. 1. 18 


9214 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


he should be seized and compelled to communicate with 
the deposed Celidonius. He stole out of Rome, and 
though it was the depth of winter, found his way back 
to Arles.! The accounts of St. Hilarius, hitherto 
reconcilable, now diverge into strange contradiction. 
The author of his Life represents him as having made 
some weak overtures of reconciliation to Leo, as wast- 
ing himself out with toils, austerities, and devotions, 
and dying before he had completed his forty-first year. 
He died, visited by visions of glory, in ecstatic peace ; 
his splendid funeral was honored by the tears of the 
whole city; the very Jews were clamorous in their sor- 
row for the beneficent Prelate. The people were 
hardly prevented from tearing his body to pieces, in 
order to possess such inestimable relics.? 

The counter-statement fills up the interval before 
Hilarius aica, te death of Hilarius with other important 
a-n-449. events. Leo addresses a letter to the Bishops 
of the province of Vienne, denouncing the impious 
resistance of Hilarius to the authority of St. Peter, 
and releasing them from all allegiance to the See of 
Arles. For hardly had the affair of Celidonius been 
decided by the See of Rome than a new charge of 
ecclesiastical tyranny had been alleged against Hilarius. 
The Bishop Projectus complained, that while he was 
afflicted with illness, Hilarius, to whose province he 
did not belong, had consecrated another Bishop in his 

1 The accounts of this transaction in the Life and in the Letters of Pope 
Leo appear to me, considered from the point of view of each writer, strictly 
coincident, instead of obstinately irreconcilable. 

2The writer describes himself as a witness of this remarkable fact: 
“Etiam Judeorum concurrunt agmina copiosa. . . . Hebream concinen- 
tium linguam in exequiis honorandis audisse me recolo. Nam nostros ita 


meeror obsederat, ut ab officio solito impatiens doloris inhibuerit magni- 
tudo.” —p. 339. 


Onap. IV. HILARIUS CENSURED. 275 


place, and this in such haste, that he had respected 
none of the canonical forms of election; he had 
awaited neither the suffrage of the citizens, the testi- 
monials of the more distinguished, nor the election of 
the Clergy. In this, and in other instances of irregu- 
Jar ordinations, Hilarius had called in the military 
power, and tumultuously interfered in the affairs of 
many churches. It is significantly suggested, that on 
every occasion Hilarius had been prodigal of the last 
and most awful power possessed by the Church, that 
of excommunication.! Hilarius was commanded to 
confine himself to his own diocese, deprived of the 
authority which he had usurped over the province of 
Vienne, and forbidden to be present at any future ordi- 
nations. But a sentence, in those days more awful 
than that of the Bishop of Rome, was pronounced 
against Hilarius. At the avowed instance of Leo, 
Valentinian promulgated an Imperial Edict, denounced 
the contumacy of Hilarius against the primacy of the 
Apostolic throne, confirmed alike by the merits of St. 
Peter, the chief of the episcopal order, by the majesty 
of tne Roman city, and by the decree of a holy Coun- 
cil. Peace can alone rule in the Church, if the uni- 
versal Church acknowledge its Lord. Hilarius is ac- 
cused of various acts of ecclesiastical tyranny and 
violence, irregular ordinations, deposals of Bishops 
without authority: of entering cities at the head of 
an armed force, of waging war instead of establishing 
peace. The sentence of so great a Pontiff as the 
Bishop of Rome did not need Imperial confirmation ; 
but as Hilarius had offended against the Majesty of 


1“Sed quod mirum eum in laicos talem existere, qui soleat in sacerdo- 
tum damnatione gaudere ?’? —§. Leon. Epist. ad Vienn. 


276 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


the Empire, as well as against the Apostolic See, he 
was reminded that it was only through the mildness of 
Leo that he retained his see. He and all the Bishops 
were warned to observe this perpetual Edict, which 
solemnly enacted that nothing should be done in Gaul, 
contrary to ancient usage, without the authority of 
the Bishop of the Eternal City; that the decree of 
the Apostolic See should henceforth be law ; and who- 
ever refused to obey the citation of the Roman Pontiff 
should be compelled to do so by the Moderator of the 
Province.! 

Spain was already nearly dissevered from the empire 
Spain. of Rome. It had been overrun, it was in 
great part occupied, by Teutonic conquerors, Suevians, 
Goths, and Vandals, all of whom, as far as they were 
Christians, adhered to the Arianism to which they 
had been converted by their first Apostles. The land 
groaned under the oppression of foreign rulers, the or- 
thodox Church under the superiority of Arian sover- 
eigns. If the provinces looked back, at least with the 
regret of interrupted habit, to the Imperial government, 
and in vain hoped for deliverance from the sinking house 
of Theodosius, the orthodox Church uttered its cry of 
distress to the Bishop of Rome. It was not however 
against Arianism, but a more formidable and dangerous 
antagonist ; one kindred to that which Leo had sup- 
pressed with such difficulty in his own immediate terri- 
tory. 

The blood of the Spanish Bishop Priscillian, the first 
martyr of heresy, as usual had flowed in vain. He 
had been put to death by the usurper Maximus, at the 


1 Constitutio Valentiniani, iii. Augusti, apud S. Leonis Opera, Epist. xi. 
p- 642. 


Cuap. IV. CONDITION OF SPAIN. NT 


instigation of two other Spanish prelates, Ithacius and 
Valens ; but to the undisguised horror of such Church- 
men as Ambrose and Martin of Tours. Leo more 
sternly approved this sanguinary intervention of the 
civil power. But, in justice to Leo, it was the moral 
and social, rather than civil offence of which he sup- 
posed the Priscillians guilty, which justly called forth the 
vengeance of the temporal Sovereign. In such case 
alone the spiritual power, which abhorred legal acts of 
bloodshed, would recur to the civil authority.! But 
the opinions of Priscillian still prevailed, and even 
seemed to have taken deeper root in Spain.  Prelates 
were infected with the indehble contagion. Turibius, 
the Bishop of Astorga, laid the burden of his sorrows 
before Leo; he asked his advice in what manner to 
cope with these dangerous adversaries. The doctrines 
of the Priscillians are summed up in sixteen articles. 
In these appear the great universal principles of Gnos- 
ticism or Manicheism, or rather of Orientalism: the 
sole existence of the primal Godhead, which preceded 
the emanation of his virtues. In this primal Godhead, 
if they recognized a Trinity, it was but a trinity of 
names. In these articles their enemies detected Arian- 
ism and Sabellianism. To the Godhead was opposed 
the uncreated Power of darkness, equally eternal, 
sprung from chaos and gloom. The Christ existed not 
till he was born of the Virgin; it was his office to 


1“ Videbant enim omnem curam honestatis auferri, omnem conjugiorum 
copulam solvi, simulque divinum jus humanumque subverti, si hujusmodi 
hominibus usquam vivere cum tali professione licuisset. Profuit diu ista 
districtio ecclesiastice lenitatis, que etsi sacerdotali contenta judicio, cruen- 
tas refugit ultiones, severis tamen Christianorum principum constitutionibus 
adjuvatur, dum ad spiritale nonnunquam recurrunt remedium, qui timent 
corporale supplicium.”” —S. Leon. Epist. See Hist. of Christianity, iii. 
262. 


278 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


deliver the souls of men, those souls being of the di- 
vine Essence, from the bondage of the body, that body 
created by the spirit of darkness. The Priscillianites 
fasted rigidly on the day of the Nativity, and on every 
Sunday, as the day of Resurrection, no doubt not on 
account of the unreality of the Saviour’s body, but for 
an opposite reason, because at his birth he was de- 
graded to an union with a material body, and at his 
resurrection reassumed that infected condition. It was 
this that set them in perpetual, implacable antagonism, 
not merely in their secret opinions, but in their public 
and outward usages, with the rest of the Christian 
world. Their austere proscription of marriage, and 
aversion to the procreation of beings with material 
bodies, led to the accustomed charge, perhaps in many 
av. 47. Cases, among the rude and ignorant, to the 
natural consequence, gross licentiousness. The peculi- 
arity of the Priscillian system was an astrological Fa- 
talism. The superstition which prevailed for so long 
a period in Europe, of assigning certain parts of the 
human body to the influences of the signs of the Zo- 
diac, assumes its first distinct form in their tenets.) It 
was the earthly part which was subject to these powers, 
who in some mysterious way were concerned in its cre- 
ation. Leo proceeded not, by a summary edict, to 
evoke this question from the Churches of Spain ; he 
recommended the convocation of a general Council of 
Bishops from the four Provinces of Tarragona, Cartha- 
gena, Lusitania, and Gallicia. If the times prevented 

1 Cap. xiv. apud Leon. Oper. p. 705. “Ad hance insaniam pertinet pro- 
digiosa illa totius humani corporis per duodecim cceli signa distinctio, ut 
diversis partibus diverse praesideant potestates; et creatura, quam Deus ad 


imaginem suam fecit, in tanta sit obligatione siderum, in quanta est connex- 
ione membrorum.’”’ —§. Leon. Epist. xy. 


(παρ. IV. ILLYRICUM. 279 


this general assembly, the Bishop of Astorga might 
appeal to a Provincial Council from Gallicia alone. 
Two Councils were held, one at Toledo, the other at 
Braga in Gallicia, in which Priscillianism was con- 
demned in the usual terms of anathema.' 

Illyricum, in the primary division of the Empire, 
had been assigned to the West ; it would be Mlyricum. 
comprehended under the patriarchal jurisdiction of the 
Bishop of Rome. As early as the pontificate of Siri- 
cius, the metropolitan of Thessalonica was appointed as 
delegate of the Bishop of Rome to rule the province. 
To this precedent Leo appeals, when he invests Anas- 
tasius, Metropolitan of the same city, with equal pow- 
ers.2. But he does not rest his title to supremacy on 
his Patriarchal power, or on the claim of the Western 
Empire to the allegiance of Ilyricum; he grounds it 
on the universal dominion which belongs to the suc- 
cessors of St. Peter. The province appears to have 
acquiesced in his authority, and received with due 
submission his ordinances concerning the election of 
Bishops and Metropolitans. But all graver causes 
were to be referred to Rome for judgment. 

The East, again plunged into a new controversy, 
might look with envy on the passive peace of The Bast. 
the West. Supremacy, held by so firm and vigorous 
a hand as that of Leo, might seem almost necessary to 
Christendom. The Bishop of Rome, standing aloof, 
and only mingling in the contests by legates, whom he 


1 It is declared in this decree, that all who had been twice married, who 
had married widows, or divorced women, were canonically unfit for the 
priesthood. Nor was it any excuse that the first wife had been married 
before baptism. “Cum in baptismate peccata deleantur, non uxorum nu- 
merus abrogetur.”’ 

2 Epist. v. ad Episcop. Metropol. 'per Illyricum constitutos (Jan. 12, 444). 


280 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


might disclaim at any time as exceeding their powers, 
could not but be heard with anxious submission by 
both parties, and by the Christian world at large. 
He would be contemplated with awful reverence, as 
attempting to command troubled Christendom into 
repose. Nestorianism had been, if not suppressed 
within the empire, reduced to the utmost weakness ; it 
had been cast forth beyond the limits of the Roman 
world into distant and miserable exile. Nestorius him- 
self had been the victim of the remorseless persecu- 
tion. 

But the theological balance was too nicely poised on 
this question, not speedily to descend on the opposite 
side. Cyril himself, by some of his strong expressions, 
had given manifest advantage to the Oriental Bishops. 
Many who condemned the heresy of Nestorius, loudly 
impeached the orthodoxy of the Alexandrian Prelate. 
The Monks. Almost throughout the East, the monks, 
mindful perhaps of their Egyptian origin, had been 
strenuous in the cause of Cyril. In Constantinople 
they had overawed the government, and powerfully 
contributed to the discomfiture of Nestorius. But from 
character, education, and habits the Eastern monks 
were least qualified to be the arbiters in a controversy 
which depended on fine shades and differences of expres- 
sion. Their dreamy and recluse life, their rigid ritual 
observances, even their austerities, instead of sharpen- 
ing their intellects, led to vague conceptions ; and the 
want of commerce with mankind disabled them from 
wielding the keen weapons of dialectics, or of compre- 
hending the subtle distinctions taught in the schools of 
philosophy. From the temperament which drove them 

1 See p. 142. 


Cuap. IV. THE MONKS — EUTYCHES. 281 


to the cell or cloister, and which was not corrected by 
enlightened education, their opinions quickly became 
passions; those passions were inflamed by mutual en- 
couragement, emulation, and the corporate spirit of 
small communities, actuated by a dominant feeling. Nor 
with them were these, points of abstract and specula- 
tive theology ; the honor of the Redeemer, the dignity 
of the Virgin Mother now so rapidly rising into an ob- 
ject of adoration, were deeply committed in the strife. 
Such men were to speak with precise and guarded lan- 
guage on the unity of the divine and human nature in 
the person of Christ; on the unity which combined 
the two in perfect harmony, yet allowed not either to 
encroach on the separate distinctness, the unalterable 
and uninterchangeable attributes of the other. 

The foremost adherent of Cyril in Constantinople 
had been Eutyches, a Presbyter, the Archi- Eutyches. 
mandrite or Superior of a convent of monks without 
the walls of the city.1 At his bidding the swarms of 
monks had thronged into the streets, defied the civil 
power, terrified the Emperor, and contributed, more 
than any other cause, to the final overthrow of 
Nestorius. He had grown old in the war against 
heresy ; he had lived in continence for seventy years 32 
nor was it till after his departure from strict ortho- 
doxy that men began to discover his total deficiency 
in learning. 

A new race of Metropolitans had arisen in the more 
important sees of the East. That of Antioch was filled 


1Eutyches is three times mentioned as a powerful ally of Cyril in the 
memorable letter to Maximianus, cited above. Flavian. Epist. ad Leon. 
Brey. Hist. Eutych. p. 759. Liberatus in Breviar. 

2 Ad Leon. Epist. sub fin. He complains in another place that Flavianus 
had not respected his gray hairs. 


282 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


preiates op PY Domnus, that of Alexandria by Diosco- 
ἐπε ΚΣ rus; Flavianus ruled the Church of Constan- 
epi tinople. ΑἹ] these prelates inherited the or- 
thodox aversion to Nestorianism. Dioscorus, though 
he persecuted the relatives of Cyril, despoiled them 
of their property, and degraded them from their offices, 
with the violence, the turbulence, and the intolerance 
of his predecessor, adhered to his anti-Nestorian opin- 
ions. A. great effort had been made to crush the 
lingering influence of those Prelates who had resisted 
Cyril. The aged Theodoret of Cyrus, who had ac- 
cepted the peace of Antioch, but had not consented 
either to the condemnation or to the complete absolu- 
tion of Cyril; Ibas of Edessa, who had defended the 
suspected writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia; Tre- 
neus of Tyre, who, as a civilian, when Count of the 
Empire, had been held a partisan of the Nestorian 
party, and though he had been twice married, had 
been promoted to that see: these, with some others, 
were degraded from their rank, and sent into exile. 

In all these movements, Eutyches and his monks 
had joined — always their clamors; where tumults in 
‘the streets of Constantinople or elsewhere were neces- 
sary to advance their cause, succors less becoming their 
secluded, peaceful, and unworldly character. On a 
sudden, Eutyches, from the all-honored and_ boastful 
champion of orthodoxy, to his own surprise (for in 
justice to him he seems to have had no very distinct 
notions of his own heterodoxy),! is arraigned, con- 
demned, and finally branded to posterity as the head 
of a new and odious heresy.. 


1 Leo writes of him with sovereign contempt: “Quine ipsius quidem 
symboli initia comprehendit.”” This old man has not learned what are the 
first lessons of the Christians. Ad Flavian. 


CuHap. IV. EUTYCHES ACCUSED. 283 


In a Synod held at Constantinople, under the Bishop 
Flavianus, Eusebius, Bishop of Doryleum, gutycnes 
solemnly charged Eutyches with denying the “““*** 
two natures in Christ. Thrice was Eutyches sum- 
moned before this tribunal, thrice he resisted or eluded 
the formal citation. He declared himself bound by a 
vow not to quit his monastery ; a vow which, as his 
adversaries reminded him, he had not very religiously 
respected during the tumults against Nestorius: he 
pleaded bad health; he promised to come forward on 
a future day. At length he condescended to appear, 
but environed by a rout of turbulent monks, and. with 
an Imperial officer, Florianus, who demanded to take 
his place in the Synod. The affair now proceeded 
with more decent. gravity. The charge was made by 
Eusebius, who had practised in the schools as a Master 
of Rhetoric.! Eutyches in vain struggled to extricate 
himself from the grasp of the rigid logician. He took 
refuge in vague and ambiguous expressions, he equivo- 
cated, he contradicted himself; his merciless antagonist 
pressed him in his dialectic toils, and at length extorted 
the heretical confession: the two natures which were 
distinct before the Incarnation, in the Christ were 
blended and confounded in one. The Synod heard 
the confession with horror, amazement, and regret; 
the awful sentence of excommunication was pxeommu- 
passed; the implacable assertor of orthodoxy ™“*** 
against Nestorius found himself cast forth as a con- 
victed and proscribed author of heresy. 

But this grave ecclesiastical proceeding has another 
side. The secret history of the times, preserved by a 
later but trustworthy authority, if it does not κα. 441. 


1 Evagrius. 


284 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


resolve the whole into a wretched court intrigue, 
connects it too closely with the rise and fall of con- 
flicting female influence, and the power of an Eunuch 
minister! The sage and virtuous Pulcheria had long 
ruled with undisputed sway the feeble mind of her 
Imperial brother, Theodosius II. Chrysaphius the 
Eunuch had risen to the chief administration of public 
affairs. He was scheming to balance, or entirely to 
overthrow the authority of Pulcheria by the influence 
of the Empress, the beautiful Eudocia. Chrysaphius 
was the godson of Eutyches. He had hoped to raise 
the monk to the see of Constantinople. The elevation 
of Flavianus crossed these designs. But Chrysaphius 
did not despair of his end; he still hoped to expel 
Flavianus from the throne, and replace him by his own 
spiritual father. Either to estrange the mind of the 
Emperor from Flavianus, or to gratify his own rapac- 
ity, he demanded the customary present to the Em- 
peror on the Prelate’s inauguration. Flavianus ten- 
dered three loaves of white bread. The minister 
indignantly rejected this poor offering, and demanded 
a considerable weight of gold. Such offering Fla- 
vianus could only furnish by a sacrilegious invasion of 
the treasures, or profanation of the sacred vessels of 
the Church. This quarrel was hardly appeased when 
Chrysaphius endeavored, with more dangerous friend- 
ship, to implicate Flavianus in his own intrigues 
against Pulcheria. Flavianus not merely eluded the 
snare, but the Eunuch suspected the Bishop of betray- 
ing his secret designs. Eusebius, the antagonist of 
Eutyches, was of the party of Pulcheria before his 
advancement to the see of Doryleum; he had held a 
1 Theophanes, Chronog. p. 153. Edit. Bonn. 


Cuar. IV. EUTYCHES APPEALS. 985 


civil office, probably in the household of the Emperor’s 
sister. He had been an early and an ardent adversary 
of Nestorius; he now stood forward as the accuser of 
the no less heretical Eutyches. 

But Eutyches was too powerful in the support of 
his faithful monks, and in the favor of the gutyenes 
minister, to submit either to the Bishop of ἜΡΩΣ 
Constantinople, or to a local Synod. He appealed to 
Christendom — from the Metropolitan of Constanti- 
nople to the Metropolitans of Jerusalem, Thessalonica, 
Alexandria, and Rome. He accused the Bishops at 
Constantinople of forging or of altering the Acts of 
their Synod. He demanded a General Council to 
examine his opinions. The Emperor, under the in- 
fluence of Chrysaphius, acceded to the request; the 
Council was summoned to meet at Ephesus, under 
the presidency of Dioscorus of Alexandria. Letters 
were despatched to the West by both parties, by 
Eutyches not only to the Bishop of Rome, but to 
the Bishop of Ravenna,! and no doubt to others. 
The support of Leo was too important not to be 
sought with earnest solicitude. But Eutyches ad- 
dressed him as a suppliant, imploring his protection 
against injustice and persecution; Flavianus as an 
equal, who condescended to inform his brother Bish- 
op of the measures which he had taken against an 
heretical subject of his diocese, and requested him 
to communicate the decree of the Constantinopolitan 
Synod to his brethren in the West. The consentient 
voice of Leo might restore peace to Christendom. 


1 The answer of the Bishop of Ravenna is extant in the works of S. Leo. 
Epist. xxv. The close, in which Chrysologus defers most humbly to Rome, 
seems to me suspicious. 


286 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


But Leo was too wise to be deluded by the servility 
of Eutyches, or offended by the stately courtesy of 
Flavianus.! He waited to form his decision with 
cautious dignity. 

At Ephesus met that assembly which has been 
Council eall- branded by the odious name of the “ Rob- 


ed ‘* Robber . a . ὃ 
Synod” of ber Synod.” But is difficult to discover in 


SL τ a what respect, either in the legality of its 
convocation, or the number and dignity of the assem- 
bled prelates, consists its inferiority to more received 
and honored Councils. Two Imperial Commissioners, 
Elpidius and Eulogius, attended to maintain order in 
the Council, and peace in the city. Dioscorus, the 
Patriarch of Alexandria, by the Imperial command 
assumed the presidency.2. The Bishops who formed 
the Synod of Constantinople were excluded as par- 
ties in the transaction, but Flavianus took his place, 
with the Metropolitans of Antioch and Jerusalem, 
and no less than three hundred and sixty bishops 
and ecclesiastics. Three ecclesiastics, Julian, a Bish- 
op, Renatus, a Presbyter, and Hilarius, a Deacon, 


1 Quesnel and Pagi on one side, Baronius and the Ballerinis on the other, 
contest the relative priority of two letters addressed by Flavianus to Leo. 
The question in debate is whether Flavianus initiated an appeal to Rome. 
But neither of them contains any recognition of Leo’s authority. In the 
first, according to Ballerini, he sends the account of the proceedings. 
Ὥστε καὶ THY σὴν ὁσιότητα γνοῦσαν τὰ κατ᾽ αὐτὸν, πᾶσι τοῖς ὑπὸ τὴν σὴν 
ϑεοσέβειαν τελοῦσι ϑεοφιλεστάτοις ἐπισκόποις δήλην ποιῆσαι τὴν αὐτοῦ 
δυσσέβειαν. --- p. 757. The second letter, as printed by the Ballerinis, is in 
the same tone: δίκαιον δὲ Kal τοῦτο, ὡς ἡγοῦμαι, διδαχϑῆναι ὑμᾶς, ὡς 
ὅτι (. τ. A. 

2 Dioscorus wanted the severe and unimpeached austerity of Cyril. He 
was said to have had a mistress named Irene. He is the subject of the 
well-known epigram which illustrates Alexandrian wit and boldness — 


«Εἰρήνη πάντεσσιν, ’Exioxoroc εἴπεν ἐπελϑών, 
Πῶς δύναται πάντεσσ᾽, ἣν μόνος ἔνδον ἔχει; 


Cuar. ΤΥ. ROBBER SYNOD. 87 


were to represent the Bishop of Rome.! The Abbot 
Barsumas (this was an innovation) took his seat in the 
Council, as a kind of representative of the monks. 

Though commenced with seeming regularity, the 
proceedings of the assembly soon degenerated imto 
disgraceful turbulence, violence, and personal conflict. 
But it is impossible to deny that in this respect the 
Robber Synod only too faithfully followed, if it ex- 
ceeded, the legitimate and CEcumenic Council of 
Ephesus. Its acts were marked with the same in- 
decent precipitation ; questions were carried by fac- 
tious acclamations within, and the Council was over- 
awed by riotous mobs without. But that which was 
pardonable and even righteous zeal in the cause of 
Cyril, was sacrilegious tumult in that of Eutyches: 
the monks, who had been welcomed and encouraged 
as holy champions of the faith when they issued from 
their cells to affright the Emperor into the condemna- 
tion of Nestorius, when they thronged around Euty- 
ches, became a mutinous and ignorant rabble.? 

The Egyptian faction (for Dioscorus, though tyran- 
nical to the kindred and adherents of Cyril, embraced 
his opinions with the utmost ardor) looked to this 
Council, not so much for the vindication of Eutyches, 
as for the total suppression of Nestorianism, and, no 
doubt, the abasement of Flavianus, and in the person 
of Flavianus, of the aspiring see of Constantinople. 
But in their blind heat they involved themselves with 
the creed of Eutyches. The Council commenced with 
the usual formalities. The proposition to read the let- 


1 They were attended by Dulcitius,a notary. 83. Leo. and Synod Ephes. 
One Bishop, Renatus, had died on the road. Hilarius seems to have taken 
the lead among Leo’s legates. 

2 Compare Walch, p. 215. 


288 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


ters of Leo to Flavianus, which condemned the doc- 
trine of Eutyches, was refused with the utmost con- 
tempt.1. Then were rehearsed the acts of the Synod 
of Constantinople. On the first mention of the two 
natures in Christ an angry dispute arose. But when 
the question put to Eutyches by Eusebius of Doryleum 
was read, whether he acknowledged the two natures 
Decree of the after the incarnation, the assembly broke out 
Council. ° . ° . 

a.v.449. with one voice, “ Away with Eusebius! 
banish Eusebius! let him be burned alive! As he 
cuts asunder the two natures in Christ, so be he cut 
asunder!” The President put the question, “Is the 
doctrine that there are two natures after the incarna- 
tion to be tolerated?”? The sacred Council replied, 
“ς Anathema on him who so says!” ‘I have your 
voices,” said Dioscorus, “1 must have your hands! 
He that cannot cry, let him lift up his hands!” With 
an unanimous suffrage the whole assembly proclaimed, 
** Accursed be he who says there are two!” The 
Council proceeded to absolve Eutyches from all sus- 
picion of heterodoxy, and to reinstate him in all his 
ecclesiastical honors; to depose Flavianus and Euse- 
bius, and to deprive them of all their dignities. Fla- 
vianus alone pronounced his appeal; Hilarius, the 
Roman deacon, alone refused his assent.2 The una- 
nimity of the assembly is unquestionable, but it is 
asserted, and on strong grounds, that it was an unanim- 
ity enforced by the dread of the imperial soldiery and 


1“ Quem Alexandrinus antistes, qui totum solus ibi potentixe suse vindi- 
cavit, audire contempsit,” ἀκοῦσαι κατέπτυσεν in the Greek.—S. Leon. 
Epist. 1. ad Constantinop. Leo’s letter exists in indifferent Greek, and 
worse Latin, dated 449, Jan. 18. 

2 We hear nothing of the other legate of Leo, the Bishop Julian; the 
Presbyter Renatus was dead. 


Cuap. IV. DEATH OF FLAVIANUS. 289 


the savage monks, who environed and even broke in, 
and violated the sanctity of the Council.! Dioscorus 
pursued his triumph. The deposition of Ibas of 
Edessa, Theodoret of Cyrus, Irenzeus of Tyre, and 
of others who were suspected of Nestorianism, or at 
least refused to subscribe the anathemas of Cyril, was 
confirmed. Domnus of Antioch was involved in their 
fate. Hilarius the deacon fled to Rome; but not so 
fortunate was Flavianus. After suffering personal in- 
sults, it is said even blows, from the furious Dioscorus 
himself, instigated by the monk Barsumas, who shouted 
aloud, “Strike him, strike him dead!” he jo, o¢ 
expired after a few days, either of his wounds, PHvianus. 
of exhaustion, or mental suffering. Thus was this the 
first, but not the last, Christian Council which was de- 
filed with blood.? 

Alexandria had succeeded in dictating its doctrine 
to the whole of Christendom; the Patriarch of Alex- 
andria had triumphed over both his rivals, had deposed 
the Metropolitan of Antioch, and the more dreaded 
Bishop of Eastern Rome. Nor was this all. An Im- 
perial edict avouched the orthodoxy and confirmed the 
acts of the second Council of Ephesus. It involved 
Flavianus and Eusebius in the charge of Nestorianism ; 
it proscribed Nestorianism in all its forms, branding it 
by the ill-omened name of Simonianism: it forbade 
the consecration of any bishop favorable to Nestorius 
or Flavianus, and deposed them, if unwarily conse- 
crated: it condemned all worship or religious meet- 
ings of the Nestorians (and all who were not Euty- 


1 See the evidence of Basil, Bishop of Cesarea. 

2 Leo, writing from the report of Hilarius, the Deacon, ‘‘ Magnum facinus 
Alexandrino Episcopo auctore vel executore commissum est.’’ —Epist. ad 
Anat. 


VOL. I. 19 


290 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


chians were in danger of being declared Nestorians), 
under the penalty of confiscation and exile ; and inter- 
dicted the reading of all Nestorian books, which are 
ranked with the anti-Christian writings of Porphyry ; 
that is, the works of Nestorius and of Theodoret, and 
according tc one copy of the law, those of Diodorus and 
Theodore of Mopsuestia also, under the same penalties. 

But the law might command, it could not enforce 
peace. astern Christendom was severed into two 
conflicting parties. Egypt, Palestine, and Thrace ad- 
hered to Dioscorus, while the rest of Asiatic Christen- 
dom, Pontus and Asia Minor, still clung to the cause 
of Flavianus.1. Strengthened by the unanimous con- 
sent of the West, which entered so reluctantly into 
these fine metaphysical subtleties, Leo, the Bishop of 
Rome, refused all recognition of the Ephesian Council. 
Dioscorus, in the heat of his passion and the pride of 
success, broke off (an unheard of and unprecedented 
boldness) all communion with Rome. 

A sudden and total revolution at once took place. 
The change was wrought,— not by the commanding 
voice of ecclesiastical authority, —not by the argu- 
mentative eloquence of any great writer, who by his 
surpassing abilities awed the world into peace, — not 
by the reaction of pure Christian charity, drawing to- 
gether the conflicting parties by evangelic love. It 
was a new dynasty on the throne of Constantinople. 

The feeble Theodosius dies; the masculine Pulche- 
ria — the champion and the pride of orthodoxy —the 
friend of Flavianus and of Leo, ascends the throne, 
and gives her hand, with a share in the empire, to a 
brave soldier named Marcianus. 


1 Liberat. Brev. c. xii. 


(παρ. IV. COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 291 


The hopes of one party, and the apprehensions of 
the other, were realized with the utmost rapidity. The 
first act of the Government, which Anatolius, the new 
bishop, who, though nominated by the Egyptian party, 
was a moderate prudent man, either acquiesced in or 
promoted, was the quiet removal of Eutyches from the 
city. ‘This measure was confirmed by a synod at Con- 
stantinople. 

A more full and authoritative Council could alone 
repeal the acts of the ““ Robber Synod” of Ephesus. 
The only opposition to the summons of such Council 
at Chalcedon arose from Leo. The Roman Pontiff 
had urged on the Western Emperor (it is said, on his 
knees) the necessity for a general Council; but Leo 
desired a Council in Italy, where no one could dispute 
the presidency of the Roman prelate. Prescient, it 
might seem, of the decree at Chalcedon, which raised 
the Patriarch of Constantinople to an equality with the 
Bishop of Rome, he dreaded the convocation of a 
Council in the precincts and under the immediate influ- 
ence of the Byzantine court. 

At Chalcedon, the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople, 
met that assembly, which has been admitted Qounci of 
to rank as the fourth, by some as the last, of δ δον 
the great CEcumenic Councils. Anatolius, “” *" 
Bishop of Constantinople, was present, with Maximus 
of Antioch, and Juvenalis of Jerusalem. Leo ap- 
pointed as his representatives two bishops and a presby- 
ter.! Above five hundred bishops? made their appear- 

1 Paschasinus, Bishop of Lilybzeum, Lucentius, Bishop of Esculanum 
(Ascoli), Boniface, Presbyter of the Church of Rome. 
2 This is the number in the Breviarium: Marcellinus raises the number 


to six hundred and thirty. Between four and five hundred signatures are 
appended to the acts. ; 


292 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II 


ance. Dioscorus of Alexandria was there, but sat 
not in the order of his rank, and was not allowed the 
right of suffrage. Theodoret of Cyrus claimed his 
seat, but did not obtain it without violent resistance 
from the Egyptian faction, who denounced him as a 
Nestorian : his own party retorted charges against the 
Egyptians, as persecutors of Flavianus, and as Mani- 
cheans. The Imperial Commissioners reproved with 
firmness, and repressed with dignity, but with much 
difficulty, these rabble-lke proceedings.’ 

The first act of the Council, after the decrees of the 
Synod at Ephesus had been read, was to annul the 
articles of deposition against Flavianus and Eusebius. 
Many of the bishops expressed their penitence at their 
concurrence in these acts: some saying that they were 
compelled by force to subscribe — others to subscribe a 
blank paper. The Council proceeded to frame a reso- 
lution, deposing Dioscorus and five other bishops, as 
having iniquitously exercised undue influence in the 
Oct. 10. Council of Ephesus; but the right of appro- 
bation of this decree was reserved to the Emperor. 
During the whole of this first session, Dioscorus had 
confronted his adversaries with the utmost intrepidity, 
readiness, and selfcommand. He cried aloud, “ They 
are condemning not me alone, but Athanasius and 
Cyril. They forbid us to assert the two natures after 
the incarnation.” The night drew on; Dioscorus de- 
manded an adjournment ; the Senate refused; the acts 
were read over by torch-light. The bishops of Ilyria 
proclaimed their abandonment of the cause of Dios- 
corus.. The night was disturbed by wild cries of accla- 


1 It is said in the Breviar. Hist. Eutych. that the Emperor and Senate 
were present. ‘he Senate appears in the acts. 


Cuap. IV. CONDEMNATION OF DIOSCORUS. 293 


mation to the Emperor and the Senate, appeals to God, 
anathema to Dioscorus — ‘“ Christ has deposed Dios- 
corus — Christ has deposed the murderer — God has 
avenged his martyrs!” The Council at the next ses- 
sion proceeded to the definition of the true faith. The 
Creeds of Nicea and of Constantinople, the two Epis- 
tles of Cyril, and above all the Epistle of Leo to Fla- 
vianus, were recognized as containing the orthodox 
Christian doctrine. The letter of Leo excited accla- 
mations of unbounded joy. “ This is the belief of the 
Fathers, — of the Apostles!” ‘So believe we all!” 
*¢ Accursed be he that admits not that Peter has spoken 
by the mouth of Leo!” “Leo has taught what is right- 
eous and true; and so taught Cyril!” ‘“ Eternal be 
the memory of Cyril!” ‘“ Why was not this read 
at Ephesus? It was suppressed by Dioscorus!” With 
this there was again a strange mingled outcry of the 
Bishops, confessing their sm and imploring forgiveness, 
and of the adversaries of Dioscorus, chiefly the clergy 
of Constantinople, clamoring, “* Away with the Egyp- 
tian, the Egyptian into exile!” 

The Imperial Commissioners, who, with some few 
of the Bishops, were anxious that affairs should pro- 
ceed with more dignified calmness, hardly restrained 
the impulse of the Council, who were eager to pro- 
ceed by acclamation, and at once, to the condemnation 
of Dioscorus ; they accused him of being a Jew. It 
would, perhaps, have been better for that prelate, if 
they had been permitted to follow their impulse ; for 
charges now began to multiply and to darken against 
the falling Patriarch — charges of disloyalty, 4... semnation 
of tyranny, of rapacity, of incontinence. % Pisorus 
Thrice was he summoned to appear (he had not been 


294 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IL. 


permitted to resume his seat, or had withdrawn during 
the stormy course of the proceedings), thrice he diso- 
beyed, or attempted to elude the summons. The sol- 
emn sentence was then pronounced by one of the 
Western Bishops, the representatives of Leo. It 
stated that Dioscorus, sometime Bishop of Alexandria, 
had been found guilty of divers ecclesiastical offences. 
To pass over many, he had admitted Eutyches, a man 
under excommunication by lawful authority, into com- 
munion ; he had haughtily repelled all remonstrances ; 
he had refused to read the Epistle of Leo at the Coun- 
cil of Ephesus; he had even aggravated his guilt by 
daring to place the Bishop of Rome himself under in- 
Oct. 13. terdict.!. Leo, therefore, by their voice, and 
with the authority of the Council, in the name of 
the Apostle Peter, the Rock and Foundation of the 
Church, deposes Dioscorus from his episcopal dignity, 
and excludes him from all Christian rights and privi- 
leges. The unanimous Council subscribes the judg- 
ment.” 

The decree was temperate and dignified; it con- 
tained no unfair or exaggerated accusations ; though it 
might dwell with undue weight on the insulting con- 
duct towards Leo, it condescended to no fierce and 
abusive appellations. Nor was the grave majesty of 
the assembly disturbed by a desperate rally of the 
Barsumas monks, headed by Barsumas. This man, as 
the monk. not unjustly suspected of being implicated in 


1 Page 424. 

2 It is remarkable that the decree took no notice of the various imputa- 
tions of heresy against Dioscorus, none of the accusations of murder said 
to have been perpetrated by him in Alexandria. Compare especially the 
libel of Ischyrion the Deacon, who offers to substantiate his charges by 
witnesses. Either Dioscorus was one of the most wicked of men, or Ischy- 
rion the most audacious of calumniators. — Labbe, p. 398-400. 


Cuap. IV. BARSUMAS THE MONK. 295 


the death of Flavianus, the assembly refused to admit 
to the honors of a seat. Repelled on all sides, and 
awed by the Imperial power, the monks appealed to 
Christ from Cesar, shook their garments in contempt 
of the Council, and as a protest against the injustice 
done to Dioscorus; and then sullenly retired to their 
solitudes to brood over and propagate in secret their 
Monophysite doctrines. Some of their traditions assert, 
in characteristic language, that Barsumas, thus igno- 
miniously expelled by the Council and by the Emperor, 
pronounced his curse against Pulcheria. She died a 
few days afterwards, and Barsumas, while he took rank 
among his followers as a prophet and man of God, be- 
came from that time an object of cruel and unrelenting 
persecution by his enemies. 

It is remarkable that the formulary of faith adopted 
finally by the Council of Chalcedon was brought for- 
ward by the Imperial Commissioners. After much al- 
tercation and delay, it received at length the sanction 
of the Council. After this the Civil Government (the 
Emperor Marcian) issued two laws, addressed to all 
orders, to the clergy, to the military, and to the com- 
monalty ; one prohibited the future agitation of these 
questions, as tending to tumult: it denounced as the 
penalty for offences against the statute, degradation to 
the ecclesiastic, to the soldier ignominious expulsion 
from the army, to the common man exile from the Im- 
perial city.1 The second decree confirmed all the pro- 
ceedings at Chalcedon, enforced on the public mind 
the deferential conclusion, that no private man could 
hope to arrive at a sounder understanding of these 


1A strong canon of the Council of Chalcedon against simony implies 
‘hat the benefices in the East, as in the West, were highly lucrative. 


296 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book II. 


mysteries than had been painfully attained by so many 
holy bishops, and only after much prayer and profound 
investigation. The punishment of dissent was left in- 
definite and at the will of the civil rulers. 

But before the final dissolution of the Council at 
Chalcedon, among thirty canons on ecclesiastical sub- 
jects, appeared one of singular importance to Christen- 
dom. It asserted the supremacy of the Roman See, 
not in right of its descent from St. Peter, but solely as 
the Bishopric of the Imperial City. It assigned, there- 
fore, to the Bishop of the New Rome, as equal in civil 
dignity, a coequal and codrdinate ecclesiastical author- 
ity! This canon, it is averred, was passed by a few 
bishops, who lingered behind the rest of the Council ; 
it claims only the subscription of one hundred and fifty 
prelates, and those chiefly of the diocese of Constan- 
tinople. It is not indeed likely that the Alexandrian 
Church, though depressed by the ignominious degrada- 
tion of its head, still less that the more ancient 
Churches of Antioch and Jerusalem should thus 
tamely acquiesce in the assumption of superiority (un- 
less it were a measure enforced by the Imperial power) 
by the modern and un-Apostolic Church of Byzan- 
tium.2 Leo from this period denounces the arrogance 

1 Καὶ yap τῷ ϑρονῷ τῆς πρεσβυτέρας Ῥώμης, διὰ τὸ βασιλεύειν τὴν πόλιν 
ἐκείνην, οἱ πάτερες εἰκότως ἀποδεδώκασι τὰ πρεσβεῖα. --- (ατι. xxviii. p. 769. 

2 Leo, in his three epistles on the subject, seems to espouse the cause of 
Antioch and Alexandria, as insulted by their degradation from the second 
and third rank; rivalry with Rome on their part is a pretension of which he 
will not condescend to entertain a suspicion. ‘“ Tanquam opportuné se 
tempus hoc tibi obtulerit, quo secundi honoris privilegium sedes Alexandrina 
perdiderit, et Antiochena Ecclesia proprietatem tertie dignitatis amiserit, 
ut his locis juri tuo subditis, Metropolitani Episcopi proprio honore priven- 
tur.”’ — Epist. liii.: ad Anatol. Const. Epise. The Bishop of Rome rebukes 


the ambition of his brother prelate in the words of St. Paul, “ Be not high- 
minded, but fear!!”’ 


(παρ. IV. THE BISHOP OF ROME. 997 


and presumption of Anatolius, the Bishop of Constan- 
tinople ; and this canon of the Gicumenic Council has 
been refused all validity in the West. 

Throughout this long and melancholy ecclesiastical 
civil war, the Bishop of Rome could not but continue 
to rise in estimation and reverence, and in their insep- 
arable result, authority. While the East had thus 
been distracted in every province, the West had en- 
joyed almost profound religious peace. The circum- 
stances of the time contributed to this state of things; 
the preoccupation of the whole Western empire by the 
terrors of the most formidable invasion which had ever 
menaced society ; the general disinclination to those 
fine theologic distinctions, which rose out of the Grecian 
schools of philosophy ; and, perhaps, the desolation by 
the savage Vandals of the African Churches, which 
were most likely to plunge hotly into such disputes, 
and to drag with them the rest of Latin Christendom. 
During the whole feud the predecessors of Leo, and 
Leo himself, had calmly and firmly adhered to those 
doctrines which were finally received as orthodox. 
They had acted by common consent as heads and rep- 
resentatives of Western Christendom, and had fully 
justified the unquestioning confidence of the West by 
their congeniality with the universal sentiment. Nor 
had their dignity suffered in the eyes of men by the 
humiliating scenes to which the great prelates of the 
East, the Metropolitans of Antioch, of Constantinople, 
and Alexandria, had been continually exposed; ar- 
raignment as heretics, as criminals, before successive 
Councils, deposition, expulsion from their sees, excom- 
munication, exile, even death. The feeble interdict 
issued by Dioscorus against Leo might have been 


298 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


shaken -off with silent contempt, if it had not rather 
suited him to treat it with indignation. Still more the 
Bishop of Rome had stood uncontaminated, in digni- 
fied seclusion from the wretched intrigues and bribery, 
the venal favor of unpopular ministers, and the trem- 
bling dependence on Imperial caprice. Every year be- 
came more and more manifest the advantage derived 
by the Bishop of Rome from the abandonment of 
Rome as the Imperial residence. The Metropolitan 
of Constantinople might claim by an ecclesiastical 
canon, equality with the Roman Pontiff; but the one 
was growing up into an independent Potentate, while 
the other, living under the darkening shadow of Impe- 
rial pomp and power, could not but shrink into a help- 
less instrument of the Imperial will. The fate of the 
Bishop of Constantinople, his rank and his authority 
in the Church, even his orthodoxy, depended virtually 
on the decree of the Emperor. Appearing in all the 
controversies of the East only in the persons of his 
delegates, the Bishop of Rome had preserved his maj- 
esty uninsulted and unhumbled by the degrading in- 
vectives, altercations, even personal contumelies, which 
had violated the sanctity of the great Eastern prelates. 
Even if they had not provoked; if they had borne 
with the most saintly patience the outrages of the pop- 
ular or monkish rabble at Ephesus or Constantinople, 
in the general mind the holy character could not but 
be lowered by these debasing scenes. 

Leo seemed fully to comprehend the importance and 
the dignity of his position. He took the most zealous 
interest in the whole controversy, but his activity was 
grave, earnest, and serious. His language to the East- 
ern Emperors, and especially to the Princess Pulcheria, 
may sound too adulatory to modern ears. The divinity 


ὕπαρ. IV. THE HUNS. 299 


of the earthly sovereign was acknowledged in terms 
too nearly approaching that reserved for the great 
divine Sovereign. This, however, must be judged 
with some regard to the sentiments and expressions 
of the age; and his deference was in language rather 
than in thought. Leo addresses these earthly masters 
with an independence of opinion, more as their equal, 
almost more as their master, than would have been 
ventured by any other subject at that time in either 
empire. 

In the West, meantime, Leo might seem, under the 
sole impulse of generous self-devotion and reliance on 
the majesty of religion, to assume the noblest func- 
tion of the civil power, the preservation of the Empire, 
of Italy, of Rome itself, of Christianity, from the most 
tremendous enemy which had ever threatened their 
freedom and peace. While the Emperor Valentinian 
III. took refuge in Rome, and rumors spread abroad 
of his meditated flight, abdication, abandonment of his 
throne, Leo almost alone stood fearless. An embassy, 
of which the Bishop of Rome was no doubt considered 
by the general reverence of his own age, as well as by 
posterity, as the head and chief, arrested the terrible 
Attila on the frontiers of Italy, and dispersed the host 
of savage and but halfhuman Huns. Leo, to grateful 
Rome, might appear as the peaceful Camillus, as the 
unarmed Marius, repelling invaders far more fearful 
than the Gauls or the Cimbrians. 

The terror of Europe at the invasion of the Huns 
naturally and justifiably surpassed that of all former bar- 
baric invasions. The Goths and other German tribes 
were familiar to the sight of the Romans ; some of them 
had long been settled within the frontier of the empire ; 
they were already for the most part Christian, and, to 


900 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IL. 


a certain extent, Romanized in their manners and 
habits. The Mongol race, with their hideous, mis- 
shapen, and, as they are described, scarcely human 
figures, their wild habits, their strange language, their 
unknown origin, their numbers, exaggerated no doubt 
by fear, and swollen by the aggregation of all the 
savage tribes who were compelled or eagerly crowded 
to join the predatory warfare, but which seemed ab- 
solutely inexhaustible; their almost unresisted career 
of victory, devastation, and carnage, from the remotest 
East till they were met by Aétius on the field of 
Chalons: at the present time the vast monarchy 
founded by Attila, which overshadowed the whole 
Northern frontier of the Empire, and to which the 
Gothic and other Teutonic kings rendered a compul- 
sory allegiance; their successful inroads on the Eastern 
Empire, even to the gates of Constantinople ; the 
haughty and contemptuous tone in which they con- 
ducted their negotiations, had almost appalled the Ro- 
man mind into the apathy of despair. Religion, 
instead of rousing to a noble resistance against this 
heathen race, which threatened to overrun the whole 
of Christendom, by acquiescing in Attila’s proud ap- 
pellation, the Scourge of God, seemed to justify a 
dastardly prostration before the acknowledged emissary 
of the divine wrath. The spell, it is true, of Attila’s 
irresistible power had been broken; he had suffered a 
great defeat, and Gaul was, for a time at least, wrested 
from his dominion by the valor and generalship of 
Aétius. But when, infuriated, as it might seem, more 
than discouraged by his discomfiture, the yet formidable 
Hun suddenly descended upon Italy, the whole penin- 
sula lay defenceless before him. Aétius, as is most 
probable, was unable, as his enemies afterwards de- 


Crap. IV. INVASION OF ATTILA. 301 


clared, was traitorously unwilling, to throw himself 
between the barbarians and Rome. The last struggles 
of Roman pride, which had rejected the demand of 
Attila for the hand of the Princess Honoria (his self 
offered bride, whose strange adventures illustrate the 
degradation of the Imperial family), and which had 
been delayed by the obstinate resistance of Aquileia to 
the whole army of Attila, were crushed by the fall and 
utter extermination of that city, and the total subju- 
gation of Italy as far as the banks of the Ρο. Valen- 
tinian, the Emperor, fled from Ravenna to Rome. ‘To 
some no doubt he might appear to seek succor at the 
feet of the Roman Pontiff; but the abandonment of 
Italy was rumored to be his last desperate determina- 
tion. 

At this fearful crisis, the insatiable and victorious 
Hun seemed suddenly and unaccountably to tuyasion of 
pause in his career of triumph. He stood ΛΝ 
rebuked and subdued before a peaceful embassy, of 
which, with the greater part of the world, the Bishop 
of Rome, as he held the most conspicuous station, so 
he received almost all the honor. The names of the 
rich Consular Avienus, of the Prefect of Italy, Trige- 
tius, who ventured with Leo to confront the barbarian 
conqueror, were speedily forgotten; and Leo stands 
forth the sole preserver of Italy. On the shores of the 
Benacus the ambassadors encountered the fearful At- 
tila. Overawed (as the belief was eagerly propagated, 
and as eagerly accepted) by the personal dignity, the 
venerable character, and by the religious majesty of 
Leo, Attila consented to receive the large dowry of 
the Princess Honoria, and to retire from Italy. The 

1 Compare Gibbon, c. xxxv. Observe the characteristic words of Jor- 


nandes: ‘“‘ Dum ad aul decus virginitatem suam cogeretur custodire.”’ 


wR 


902 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II 


death of Attila in the following year, by the bursting 
of a blood-vessel, on the night during which he had 
wedded a new wife, may have been brooding, as it 
were, in his constitution, and somewhat subdued his 
fiercer energy of ambition. His army, in all proba- 
bility, was weakened by its conquests, and by the 
uncongenial climate and unaccustomed luxuries of 
Italy. But religious awe may still have been the 
dominant feeling which enthralled the mind of Attila. 
The Hun, with the usual superstitiousness of the 
polytheist, may have trembled before the God of the 
stranger, whom nevertheless he did not worship. The 
best historian of the period relates that the fate of 
Alaric, who had survived so short a time the conquest 
of Rome, was known to Attila, and seemed to have 
made a profound impression upon him.) The daunt- 
av. 45. less confidence and the venerable aspect of 
Leo would confirm this apprehension of encountering, 
as it were, in his sanctuary the God now adored by 
the Romans. Legend, indeed, has attributed the sub- 
mission of Attila to a visible apparition of the Apostles 
St. Peter and St. Paul, who menaced the trembling 
heathen with a speedy divine judgment if he repelled 
the proposals of their successor. But this materializ- 
ing view, though it may have heightened the beauty of 
Raffaelle’s painting of Leo’s meeting with Attila, by 
the introduction of preterhuman forms, lowers the 
moral grandeur of the whole transaction. The simple 
faith in his God, which gave the Roman Pontiff cour- 
age to confront Attila, and threw that commanding 
majesty over his words and actions which wrought 
upon the mind of the barbarian, is far more Chris- 
tianly sublime than this unnecessarily imagined miracle. 


1 Priscus, quoted by Jornandes, c. 42. 
ΕΝ 


Crap. IV. INVASION OF GENSERIC. 303 


The incorrigible Romans alone, in their inextinguish- 
able pagan superstition, or their ineradicable pagan 
passion for the amphitheatre, attributed the deliverance 
of the city not to the intercession of Leo (like the rest 
of the world), or to the mercy of God, but to the 
influence of the stars. They crowded (to his indig- 
nation) to the Circensian games, rather than to the 
tombs of the martyrs.1_ Leo might save Rome from 
the sword of the heathen barbarian, he could not save 
it from the vices of the Christian sovereign, which 
were precipitating the Western Empire to its fall, and 
brought down on Rome a second capture, more de- 
structive than that of the Goth, by the Vandal Genseric. 
Valentinian III. had taken refuge at Rome; but he 
found Rome not only more secure, but in its society, 
its luxury, and its dissoluteness, a more congenial scene 
for his license than the confined and secluded Ravenna. 
He returned to it to indulge more freely in his promis- 
cuous amours. At length the violation of the wife 
of a Senator, Petronius Maximus, of the highest rank 
and great wealth, caused his assassination. In Valen- 
tinian closed the Western line of descendants from the 


1“ Pudet dicere, sed oportet non tacere: plus impenditur dzemoniis quam 
apostolis, et majorem obtinent insana spectacula frequentiam, quam beata 
martyria.”” —S. Leon. Serm. Ixxxiv. Iam inclined to concur with Ba- 
ronius (Annal. sub ann.) rather than with the later editors of S. Leo’s 
works, Quesnel and the Balerinis, in assigning the short sermon on the 
Octave of St. Peter to the deliverance from Attila, not to the evacuation of 
the city by Genseric. Ballerini’s view seems impossible. The death of the 
Emperor Maximus (see below) took place on the 12th of June, three days 
after Genseric entered the city; the sack of the city lasted fourteen days, 
till St. Peter’s Day, the 29th; yet Ballerini would suppose that on the 
octave of that day the Romans were so far recovered from their consterna- 
tion, danger, and ruin, as to celebrate the Circensian games at great 
expense, and to attend them in multitudes, which provoked the holy 
indignation of the bishop. The deliverance, which they ascribed to the 
stars, rather than to the mercy of God, can hardly have been the abandon- 
ment of the plundered and desolate city, with hundreds of the inhabitants 
carried away into captivity. 


904 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


great Theodosius. The vengeance of Maximus was 
not content with the sceptre of the murdered Valen- 
tinian; he compelled Eudoxia, the Empress, during 
the first months of her widowhood, to receive him 
as her husband; and in the carelessness or the inso- 
lence of his triumph, betrayed his own complicity, 
which was before doubtful, in the assassination of 
Valentinian. Eudoxia determined on revenge; from 
her Imperial kindred in the East she could expect no 
succor; the Vandal fleets covered the Mediterranean ; 
Genseric, not satiated with the conquest of Africa, had 
already subdued Sicily. At the secret summons of 
the Empress he landed with a powerful force, at the 
mouth of the Tiber. The defenceless Romans has- 
tened to sacrifice the cause of their calamities; they 
joined the followers of Eudoxia in a general insurrec- 
tion, in which the miserable Maximus perished; his 
body was hewn in pieces and then cast into the Tiber.! 

But the ambition and the rapacity of Genseric were 
not appeased by this victim; he advanced towards 
Rome, where no measures of defence had been taken ; 
none perhaps could have been organized in a city 
without a ruler, and without a standing force. Leo 
was again the only safeguard of the city; but the 
Bishop of Rome was still a man of Christian peace. 
Unarmed, at the head of his clergy, he issued forth 
to meet the invader; and though the Arian Vandal, 
within sight of his prey, and actually master of Rome, 
still the centre of riches and luxury, Rome open to 
his own rapacity, and that of his soldiers— was less 
submissive than the heathen Hun; yet even he con- 
a.v.455. sented to some restraint on the cruelty and 


1 Procop. Hist. Vandal. On the character and history of Maximus, read 
Letter of Sidon. Apollinar. 11, 13. 


Crap. IV. PILLAGE OF ROME BY GENSERIC. 305 


license which attend the sack of a captured city. The 
lives of those who offered no resistance were to be 
spared ; the buildings to be guarded against conflagra- 
tion, the captives protected from torture. But that 
was all (and it was much at such a crisis) which the 
authority of the Pontiff could obtain. The Roman 
Leo with the rest of his countrymen must witness, 
what may seem to have aggravated the calamity in 
the estimation of the world, the late revenge of Car- 
thage, the plunder of Rome by the conquering Afri- 
cans.!. In the pillage, which lasted for fourteen days, . 
if the edifices were spared, the treasuries of the 
churches were forced to surrender all which they had 
accumulated from the pious munificence of the public, 
during the forty-five years which had elapsed since the 
sack by Alaric.2 It has been observed as a singular 
event that Genseric, a barbarian from the shores of 
the Baltic, compelled Rome to surrender, and trans- 
ported to the shores of Africa the spoils of two relig- 
ions. From the Temple of Peace in Rome he carried 
off the plunder of the Jewish Holy of Holies, the gold 
table and the seven-branched candlestick, which had 
been deposited as trophies by the Emperor Titus. 
Roman paganism suffered loss no less insulting than 
that she had inflicted on Jerusalem. The statues of 


1 See the spirited lines of Sidonius, — 
Heu facinus! in bella iterum quartosque labores 
Perfida Elisseze crudescunt classica Byrse. 
Nutritis quod fata malim ! Conscenderat arces 
Eyandri Massyla phalanx, montesque Quirini 
Marmarici pressere pedes, rursusque revexit 
Que captiva dedit quondam stipendia Barche. 
Sid. Apoll. Panegyric. — 444. 

2 Leo from the wreck saved three large silver vessels, of 100 pounds each, 
which he caused to be cast into communion plate for the other destitute 
churches. Baronius, from this, and other equally insufficient reasons, 
infers that the three great churches of St. Peter, St. Paul, and the Lateran 
(?) escaped. 

VOL. I. 20 


900 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book II. 


the gods and heroes of ancient Rome had been still 
permitted to adorn the Capitoline Temple. These, 
with the roof of gilt bronze, became the prey of the 
African Vandals, and were consigned as trophies to 
Carthave. Rome thus ceased altogether to be a pagan 
‘city ; and Genseric accomplished what, by the disper- 
sion of the old pagan families, had been more than 
begun by Alaric. The last bond was broken between 
Christian Rome and the religion of ancient Rome. 
The ship which bore the gods of Rome to Carthage 
foundered at sea. The amount of plunder from the 
Imperial palace and those of the still wealthy nobil- 
ity, from the temples and the churches, is vaguely 
stated at many thousand talents. The Vandal ava- 
rice stooped to the meaner metals; the copper and 
the brass were swept away with remorseless rapacity. 
The Roman aristocracy, which had been scattered to so 
great an extent by the conquest of Alaric, were now in 
numbers carried away into captivity; families were 
broken up, wives separated from husbands, children 
from parents. Even the Empress Eudoxia and her 
daughters, the sole survivors of the Western line of 
Theodosius, were transported as honorable bond-slaves 
to Carthage; one of the daughters, Eudocia, Genseric 
married to his son; the mother and the other daughter, 
who was already married he released at the request of the 
Byzantine Emperor Leo, and sent them to Constantino- 
ple. But with every successive decimation which thus 
fell on the Roman nobility, the relative importance of 
the clergy must have increased, as did that of the Pon- 
tiff, from the absence of the Emperor from the capital. 
Rome, after the departure of Genseric’s fleet, laden with 
the spoils and crowded with captives, selected for their 
rank, their accomplishments, the females no doubt for 


ὕπαρ. IV. PILLAGE OF ROME BY GENSERIC. 307 


their beauty or for their easy submission to the will 
of the conquerer, was left without government, almost 
without social organization, except that of the Church. 
The first Emperor who aspired to the succession of 
Maximus was Avitus in Gaul. 

The calamity which could not be averted by the 
commanding authority of the Bishop of Rome, was 
mitigated by the active and judicious charity of the 
Bishop of Carthage. Deo Gratias, by the manner in 
which he devoted himself to the service of the wretched 
captives dragged away from Rome, has extorted the 
sincere admiration of an historian in general too blind 
to the true beauty of the Christian religion.’ The 
Bishop of Carthage had no scruple in sacrificing that 
which had been offered to give splendor to the worship 
of God, to the more holy object of alleviating human 
misery. In order to reunite those who had been 
severed by the cruelty or the covetousness of the 
conquerors — the husbands from the wives, the parents 
from their children —he sold all the gold and silver 
vessels belonging to the churches of his diocese. Dis- 
eases and sicknesses followed this sudden and violent 
change of life. To mitigate these sufferings he con- 
verted two large churches into hospitals, furnished 
them with beds and mattresses, and with a daily allow- 
ance of food and medicine. The good bishop himself 
by night and day accompanied the physicians, visiting 
every bed, and adding the comforts of tender and attec- 
tionate sympathy and of gentle Christian advice, to 
the substantial gifts of food and the proper remedies.” 
The aged man wore himself out in these cares. He 
may have been obnoxious on other accounts to the 

1 Gibbon. 2 Gibbon well describes this. 


308 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book II. 


Arian rulers, and may have escaped the persecutions 
with which Genseric and the Vandals afterwards af- 
flicted the African Churches by his timely death ;! 
but the judgment must be strangely infected with the- 
ological hatred which would suppose that his life was 
endangered by the jealousy of the Arians at these 
acts of true Christian mercy.” 

The sudden but brief and transitory effort of the 
Roman Empire, under Majorian, to arrest its hasten- 
ing extinction, to resume something of its ancient 
energy, to mitigate the calamities, and avert the im- 
pending disorganization by wise legislation,’ by the 
remission of burdensome taxation, by the restoration 
of the municipal government in the cities — this last 
and exhausting paroxysm of strength continued till 
the close of the Pontificate of Leo. But it was too 
late; wisdom and virtue, at certain periods, are as 
fatal to those at the head of affairs, as improvidence 
and vice. He that would stem a torrent at its fall 
is swept away. Majorian perished through a lawless 
conspiracy, as though he had been the worst of tyrants. 
The last of the Roman Emperors who showed any- 
thing of the Roman in his character, and the Pontiff 
who, in a truly Roman spirit, chiefly founded her 
spiritual empire, were coincident in the period of their 
death. Majorian died in the year 461, leaving the 

1 Victor. Vit. de Persecut. Vandal. 

2 This is the charitable conclusion of Baronius: ‘‘ Quo livore Ariani suc- 
censi, dolis eum quam plurimis voluerunt spits enecare. Quod, credo, 
previdens Dominus passerem suum de manibus accipitium voluit liberare.”’ 
— Annal. sub ann. 453. 

8 Compare the laws of Majorian at the end of the Codex Theodosianus. 

4 Leo was still occupied by the disputes in the East, which followed the 


condemnation of Eutychianism by the Council of Chalcedon, but this sub- 
ject will be continuously treated in the following Book. 


ὕπαρ. IV. FOUNDATION OF THE POPEDOM. 309 


affairs of Rome and the still subject provinces in 
irrecoverable anarchy. One or two obscure names 
fill up the barren annals, till the Western Empire 
expired in the person of Augustulus. Leo died in 
the same year, leaving a regular succession of Pon- 
tiffs, who gradually rose to increasing temporal influ- 
ence, which, nevertheless, was entirely subordinate to 
the barbarian kings of Italy, the Herulian and the 
Ostro-Gothic line, till, after the reconquest of Italy 
by the Eastern Emperor, and the gradual abandon- 
ment of Justinian’s conquests by his feebler successors, 
the Popes became great temporal potentates. 

Latin Christianity, at the close of the fourth, and 
during the first decennial period of the fifth century, 
had produced three of her great fathers—the foun- 
ders of her doctrinal and disciplinarian system — Je- 
rome, Ambrose, Augustine; Jerome, if not the father, 
the faithful and zealous guardian of her young monas- 
ticism, Ambrose of her sacerdotal authority, Augustine 
of her theology. 

Before the middle of the fifth century, the two 
great founders of the Popedom, Innocent I. and Leo 
I., (smgularly enough, each contemporary with one of 
the sieges and sacks of Imperial Rome by Teutonic 
barbarians,) had laid deep the groundwork for the 
Western spiritual monarchy of Rome. That monar- 
chy must await the close of the sixth century to behold 
her fourth Father, the author, if we may so speak, of 
her popular religion, and the third great founder of 
the Papal authority, not only over the minds, but 
over the hearts of men— Gregory the Great. 


910 


ΒΟΟΚ 


461. Hilarius. 


468. Simplicius. 


492. Gelasius I. 


496. Anastasius 11. 

498. Symmachug. 

498. Laurentius, 
antipope. 


614. Hormisdas. 


623. John I. 

526. Felix IV. 

630. Boniface II. 

630. Dioscorus, 
antipope. 

632. John Il. 
(Mercurius) . 

635. Agapetus I. 


536. Silverius. 
637. Vigilius. 


555. Pelagius I. 
560. John ΠῚ. 


574. Benediot I. 
578. Pelagius II. 
590. Gregory I. 


468 


483 


498 
514 


505 
523 


LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 


Boox III 


11. CONTEMPORARY CHRONOLOGY. 


PATRIARCHS OF 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 


PATRIAROHS OF 
ALEXANDRIAs 


PATRIAROHS OF 
ANTIOOH. 


PATRIARCHS OF 
JERUSALEM. 


a.De 


471 


A.D. 


458. Gennadius. 


471. Acacius. 489 


489. Fravitta. 
490. Euphemius, 
deposed. 


490 
495 


495. Macedonius 
Il., deposed. 611 


511. Timotheus. 617 


617. John the Cap- 
padocian. 620 


520. Epiphanius. 535 


635. Anthimus, 
deposed. 
536. Mennas. 


636 
552 


652. Eutychius, 
deposed. 


665. John Scolas- 
ticus. 577 


677. Eutychius, 
restored. 

682. John the 
Faster. 


582 
595 


595. Cyriac, 08 


A.D. A.D. 


460. Solofaciolus. 482 
T. £lurus. 477 


482, John Talaias, 
deposed. 

482. Peter Mon- 
gus. 


482 
490 


490. Athanasius 


496. Johannes He- 
mala. 605 
505. Johannes 


Niceota. 517 


517. Dioscorus II. 519 
519. Timotheus 


637. Gazanus, 
deposed. 
537. Theodosius, 
deposed. 
638. Paul, 
deposed. 
641. Zoilus, 
deposed. 


551. Apollinaris. 


SOHISM. 

OATHOLIO. 
569. John IV. 
680. Eulogius. 

JAOCOBITE. 


669. Damianus. 


A.D. 


460. Martyrius, 


resigned. 471 


471. Peter the Fuller, 
deposed. 471 
471. Julian. 475 
475. Peter the Fuller, 
again deposed. 478 
478. John Codona- 
tus, deposed. 478 
478. Stephen II. 481 
481. Stephen III, 482 
482. Calandion, 
deposed. 485 


485. Peter the 
Fuller. 
488. Palladius. 


488 
498 


498. Flavianus, 
deposed. 


511. Severus, 
deposed. 


519. Paul, abdi- 
cated. 
621. Euphrasius. 


627. Ephrem. 


645. Domnus ΠῚ, 569 


559. Anastasius I. 
deposed. 569 
569. Gregory, 


abdicated. 593 


693, Anastasius I. 
i 598 


again. 
698. Anastasius 
1. 610 


4.Ὁ. A.D. 


458. Anastasius. 478 


478, Martyrius. 


486. Sallustius. 


613. John ΠῚ. 


524. Peter. 


544. Eustochius, 
deposed. 


665, Macarius. 


674. John IV. 


594, Amos. 


601. Isaac. 


Onap. I. CONTEMPORARY POTENTATES. 911 


EMPERORS 
OF THE BAST. 


WESTERN 
EMPERORBB. 


EINGS 
OF FRANES. 


VISIGOTHIO KINGS 
IN BPAIN. 


VANDAL KINGS 
IN APRIOA. 


A.D. 
474 


A.D. aD. A.D. 


426. Genserie. 


A.D. 


476 


4.D. 
457. Leo I. 


461. Severus. 464 
464. Vacant. 466 
467. Anthemius. 


472. Olybrius. 
Glycerius. 
Nepos. 
Augustulus. 476 


474. Leo I. 
Zeno. 
Basilisous. 


491 


476. Hunneric. 484 


481. Clovis. 610 
Kingdom 
divided. 


KINGS OF ITALY. 


476, Odoacer the 
Herulian, 


484. Gondebald. 495 


610. Descendants 
of Olovis. 


491, Anastasius I. 518 


493, Theodorio the 
Ostrogoth. 626 


495. Thrasimond. 522 


KINGS 
OF BURGUNDY. 


451. Gunderic. 472 


472. Gundebald and 
his brothers. 509 | 511. Amalario. 

(Vitalianus.) 515 
618, Justin I. 627 


509. Sigismond. 524 


622. Hilderic. 530 


624. Gondemar. 532 
Conquered by 
Western Franks. 


626, Athalaric. 634 630. Gilimer. 534 
534. Conquered by 


Justinian. 


527. Justinian. 665 


634. Theodatus. 536 
636. Vitiges. 640 


581. Theudes. 


548. Theodegesild. 549 
649, Agila. 658 


540. Theodebald, 


665. Justin. 578 


578. Tiberius. 
682. Maurice. 


£8 


ar For Eastern Empire, ὅο. — See bottom of next page. 


312 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IIL. 


BOOK ait: 


CHAPTER I. 
MONOPHYSITISM. 


Leo THE Great had not lived to witness the last 
feeble agonies of the Western Empire ; he escaped the 
ignominious feeling which must have depressed the 
spirit of a Roman at the assumption of the strange 
title, the King of Italy, by a Barbarian: he was not 
called upon to render his allegiance, or to acknowledge 
the title of Odoacer. 

The immediate successor of Leo was Hilarius, by 
Nov. 19, 461. birth a Sardinian. As deacon, Hilarius had 
i) | been the representative of Leo at the Coun- 
cil of Ephesus. His firmness during those stormy 
debates displays a character unlikely to depart from 
the lofty pretensions of his predecessor. He reasserted 
in the East the unbending orthodoxy of Leo; in the 
West, he maintained, to the utmost extent, the author- 


ity which had been claimed over the churches of Gaul 


BASTERN EMPIRE, 
554. Narses, Governor. 566. 


EXAROHS OF KINGS OP 
RAVENNA. LOMBARDS. 
569. Longinus. 6584 | 568. Alboin. 572 
584. Smaragdus. 587 | 572. Cleophis. 674 
587. Romanus, 598 | 574. Dukes rule to 584 
598. Callinicus. 603 | 684. Autharis, 590 


590. ρίαν, 616 


Cuar. I. EXTINCTION OF ROMAN SOVEREIGNTY. 919 


and Spain. MRusticus, Bishop of Narbonne, on_ his 
death-bed, nominated Hermes as successor to his see. 
This precedent of a bishop making his see, as it were, 
a subject of testamentary bequest, seemed dangerous, 
though in this case the lawful assent had been obtained 
from the clergy and the people. Hilarius, at Nov. 8, 462. 

the head of a synod in Rome, condemned the prac- 
tice, but for the sentence of degradation substituted 
the lesser punishment, the deprivation of the right 
to confer ordination. In another dispute concerning 
the jurisdiction of the Metropolitans of Arles and 
Vienne over the Bishop of Die, the successor Feb. 24, 464. 
of St. Peter at least confirms, if he does not ground 
his whole ecclesiastical authority on the decrees of 
Christian Emperors. The Imperial sanction was want- 
ing to ratify the edicts of the Apostolic See.1 The 
bishops of the province of Tarragona addressed Pope 
Hilarius in humbler language, and were treated, there- 
fore, in a loftier tone of dictation. 

The only act of Hilarius which mingles him up with 
the temporal affairs of the age, is his solemn rebuke of 
the Emperor Anthemius, the sovereign who had been 
sent from Constantinople to rule the West, for presum- 
ing to introduce those maxims of toleration, to which 
his father-m-law, Marcian, had compelled unruly Con- 
stantinople; and even to look with favor on the few 


1“ Fratri enim nostro Leontio nihil constituti a sanctee memoriz deces- 
sore meo potuit abrogari, nihil voluit, quod honori ejus debetur, auferri; 
quia Christianorum quoque principum lege decretum est, ut quidquid eccle- 
siis earumque rectoribus, pro quiete omnium domini sacerdotum, atque 
ipsius observantia discipline, in auferendis confusionibus apostolic sedis 
antistes suo pronunciasset examine, veneranter accipi, tenaciterque ser- 
vari, cum suis plebibus caritas vestra cognosceret: nec unquam possent 
convelli, que et sacerdotali ecclesiastica preeceptione fulcirentur οὐ regid.”” 
— Hilarii Pape Epist. xi. Labbe, p. 1045. 


914 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IIL 


surviving partisans of the ancient philosophy, if not. of 
the ancient religion, Under the reign of Anthemius, 
the old heathen festival, the Lupercalia, was still cele- 
brated in Rome. The venerable rite which still com- 
memorated at once the genial influences of the open- 
Sept.467. ing year, and the birth of Rome from the 
she-wolf which nursed her twin founders, was but 
slightly disguised to the worshipping Christians.! 

It was Simplicius, the successor of Hilarius, born at 
rep. 25, 463. Libur, who beheld the sceptre wrested from 
eeuoueing. the helpless hand of Augustulus, and heard 
the demand of the allegiance of Italy from Odoacer, 
a barbarian of uncertain race. The Papal Epistles 
dwell only on the polemic controversies of the day, on 
Close of the questions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction or cere- 
Empire.  monial disclipline; they rarely notice, even 
incidentally, the great changes in the civil society 
around them. We endeavor in vain to find any ex- 
pression or intimation of the feelings excited in a Ro 
man of the high station and influence of the Pope, at 
the total extinction of that sovereignty which had goy- 
erned the world for centuries, and from which the 
Bishop of Rome acknowledged himself to hold to some 
extent his authority ; by whose edicts Christianity had 
become the established religion of the world, to which 
the orthodox faith looked for its support by the legal 
proscription of heretics; which had been at least the 
civil lawgiver of the Church, and by whose grants she 
held her vast increasing estates. How far was the 
conscious possession of a power, which might hereafter 
sway opinions as widely as the republic or the empire 
had enforced outward submission and by force of arms 


1 Compare Gibbon, ch. xxxvi. 


Guar. I. CHURCH IN THE EAST. 315 


had quelled every thought of resistance, accepted as a 
consolation for the departed name of sovereignty ? 
How far did Roman pride take refuge under the pre- 
tensions of her Bishop to be the head of Christendom, 
from the degradation of a foreign and barbarian yoke ? 
Christendom, from all her monuments and records, 
might seem to have formed a world of her own. Of 
the fall of Augutulus, of the rise of Odoacer, we hear 
not a word. Even in the midst of this extraordinary 
revolution the active energy of the Popes seems con- 
centred on the East. The Bishop of Rome is busy 
in Constantinople, opposing the intrigues of Timotheus 
Ailurus, the Bishop of Alexandria, and jealously watch- 
ing the ambition of Acacius, the Bishop of Constan- 
tinople, a more formidable enemy than Odoacer, as 
threatening the religious supremacy of Rome.! He 
takes deep interest in the changes on the throne of the 
East, congratulates the Emperor Zeno on his restora- 
tion, but it is because Zeno is an enemy to the Euty- 
chian heretics, because he rises on the ruins of Basilis- 
cus, the patron of the Monophysite faction. 

For while the West, partly from her want of interest 
in these questions, partly from the unsettled state of 
public affairs, from the breaking up of Attila’s king- 
dom, the Vandal invasion of Italy, the Visigothic con- 
quests in Gaul and Spain, and the final extinction of 
the empire, reposed, as to its religious belief, under the 
paternal sway of Pope Leo and his succes- ouch in 
sors, the distracted East, in all its great capi- ἤν 
tals, was still agitated with strife, that strife perpetually 
breaking out into violence and bloodshed. The Coun- 


ceil of Chalcedon had commanded, had defined the or- 
1 Simplicii Epist. p. 1078. 


316 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III 


thodox creed in vain. Everywhere its decrees were 
received or rejected, according to the dominant party 
in each city, and the opinions of the reigning Emperor. 
On all the metropolitan thrones there were rival 
bishops, anathematizing each other, and each supported 
either by the civil power, by a part of the populace, or 
by the monks, more fierce and unruly than the unruly 
populace. For everywhere monks were at the head of 
the religious revolution which threw off the yoke of 
Jerusalem. the Council of Chalcedon.t In Jerusalem 
Theodosius, a monk, expelled the rightful prelate, Ju- 
venalis ; was consecrated by his party, and maintained 
himself by acts of violence, pillage, and murder, more 
like one of the lawless bandits of the country than a 
Christian bishop. The very scenes of the Saviour’s 
Alexandria. mercies ran with blood shed in his name by 
his ferocious self-called disciples. In Alexandria the 
name of Dioscorus (who remained quiet till his death, 
at Gangra, his place of exile) was still dear to most of 
the monks, and to many of the people, who asserted 
the champion of orthodox belief and Alexandrian dig- 
nity to have been sacrificed to the Westorian Council 
of Chalcedon. <A prelate named Proterius had been 
appointed, in the triumph of that Council, to the vacant 
see. The bold wit of the Alexandrian populace had 
always delighted in affixing nicknames upon the rulers 
and kings of Egypt; in their strong religious animos- 


1 Leonis Epist. cix. a exxiv.; Marciani Epist. ad calc. Conc. Chalced. ; 
Evagrius, 11, 5. The latter writer says the difference between the two 
parties was between the two prepositions ev and ef. Leo makes a remarka- 
ble admission. His words might have been misunderstood by those who 
“non valentes in Gracum apté et proprié Latina transferre, cum in rebus 
subtilibus et difficilibus explicandis, vix sibi etiam in su4 lingua disputator 
quisque sufticiat.”’ 


Crap. I. EXCESSES OF THE MONKS. old 


ity, they scrupled not to profane their holy bishops with 
equally irreverent appellations. ‘Timotheus, a monk, 
called Ailurus the Weasel, perhaps because he was 
said to have slunk by night to the secret meetings of 
the rabble, or because he stole into the bish- α.ν. 457. 
opric of another, was consecrated by the anti-Chalce- 
donian faction, as a rival metropolitan. We are im- 
patient of these dreary and intricate feuds. That of 
Alexandria ended, it must not be said, for it might 
seem interminable, but came to a crisis, in the horrible 
assassination of Proterius. So little had centuries of 
Christianity tamed the savage populace of this great 
city, that the Bishop was not only murdered in the 
baptistery, but his body treated with shameless indig- 
nity, and other enormities perpetrated which might 
have appalled a cannibal. Timotheus, however, is 
acquitted as to the guilt of participation in these mon- 
strous crimes. But the Weasel did not assume the 
throne of Alexandria without a rival. Another Timo 
theus, called Solofaciolus, was set up (Timo- a.v. 460. 
theus the Weasel having been banished on the author- 
ity of the Emperor Leo), after no long interval, by 
the Chalcedonian party.” 

At Antioch, some years later, a third monk, Peter, 
called from his humble birth and occupation the Fuller,’ 
with the apparent countenance of Zeno, the Antioch. 

. Emperor Leo’s son-in-law, whom he had accompanied 

1 Καὶ οὐδὲ τῶν ἐντὸς ἀπογεύεσϑαι κατὰ τοὺς ϑῆρας φειδόμενοι ἐκείνου, ὅν 
ἔχειν μεσίτην ϑεοῦ καὶ ἀνϑρώπων ἔναγχος ἐνομίσϑησαν. --- Evagrius, 11, 9, 
quoting the letter of the Bishops and Clergy to the Emperor Leo. 

2 Timotheus was allowed to go to Constantinople to plead his cause; 
thence he was dismissed into banishment. — 5. Leon. Epist. ad Gennadium 
et ad Leonem Imper. 


8 The history of Peter the Fuller is related differently; the time of his 
invasion of the church of Antioch is not quite certain. 


918 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Bovux ΠΙ. 


during his wars in the East, began to intrigue with the 
discontented party in that city. He led a procession, 
chiefly of monastics, through the streets, which added 
to the “« Thrice Holy” in the hymn, “ who wast cru- 
cified for us.” In a short time Peter succeeded in 
expelling the Bishop Martyrius, who voluntarily abdi- 
cated his see. 

Barsumas, the notorious leader of the monks in Con- 
stantinople, who had been driven from that city by the 
Council of Chalcedon, was not inactive during his 
exile. Throughout Syria he spread the charge of Nes- 
torianism against the Council, and exasperated men’s 
minds against the prelates of that party. On one re- 
ligious subject alone the conflicting East maintained its 
perfect unity, in the reverence, it may be said the wor- 
ship, of the Hermit on the Pillar. Simeon Stylites 
had been observed by his faithful disciple to have re- 
mained motionless for three days in the same attitude 
of prayer. Not once had he stretched out his arms in 
the form of the cross; not once had he bowed his fore- 
head till it touched his feet (a holy exploit, which his 
wondering admirers had seen him perform twelve hun- 
dred and forty-four times, and then lost their reckon- 
ing). The watchful disciple climbed the pillar ; a rich 
odor saluted his nostrils; the saint was dead. The 
news reached Antioch. Ardaburius, general of the 
forces in the East, hastened to send a guard of honor, 
lest the neighboring cities should seize — perhaps meet 
in desperate warfare for—the treasure of his body. 
Antioch, now one in heart and soul, sent out her Patri- 
arch, with three other bishops, to lead the funeral pro- 
cession. The body was borne on mules for three 
hundred stadia; a deaf and dumb man touched the 


Crap. I. SIMEON STYLITES. 319 


bier, he burst out into a cry of gratulation. The 
whole city, with torches and hymns, followed the body, 
The Emperor Leo implored Antioch to yield to him the 
inestimable deposit. ‘The Emperor implored in vain. 
Antioch, so long as she possessed the remains of Simeon, 
might defy all her enemies. In the same year, when 
Antioch thus honored the funeral rites of him whom 
she esteemed the greatest of mankind, Rome was la- 
menting in deep and manly sorrow her Pontiff, Leo. 
Contrast Simeon Stylites with one Emperor crouching 
at the foot of his pillar, and receiving his dull, inco- 
herent words as an oracle, then with another, a man 
of higher character, supplicating for the possession of 
his remains, and Pope Leo on his throne in Rome, and 
in the camp of Attila. Such were then Greek and 
Latin Christianity. Nor was the lineage of the Holy 
Simeon broken or contested. The sees of Constantino- 
ple, Antioch, Alexandria, the throne of the East, might 
be the cause of long and bloody conflict. The hermit 
Daniel mounted his pillar at Anaplus, near the mouth 
of the Euxine; in that cold and stormy climate, his 
body, instead of being burned up with heat, was rigid 
with frost. But he became at once the legitimate, 
acknowledged successor of Simeon, the Prophet, the 
oracle of Constantinople. Once he condescended to 
appear in the streets of Constantinople; his presence 
decided the fate of the Empire.} 

The religious affairs in the East were indissolubly 


1 On Simeon. Antonii vit. 5. S. Theodoret Lect., Evagr. i. 13; on Daniel 
vit. Dan. Theodoret. This kind of asceticism was the admiration of the 
East to a later period. Eustathius of Thessalonica addressed a Stylites in 
the xiith century, admonishing the Saint against pride, yet at the same 
time asserting this to be the utmost height of religion. Eustath. Opuscula, 
Edit. Tafel, p. 182. 


320 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


9 


blended with the political revolutions, to which the 


Revolutions religious factions added their weight, and 
in Constanti- e . ye0 . 
nople. From unquestionably did not mitigate the animos- 
A.D. 457 to Ἂ 5 


474. ity. These revolutions were frequent and 
peathor Violent. Leo the Thracian, the successor of 
Mareian. —_Marcian, throughout his long reign, adhered 


firmly to the Council of Chalcedon. ‘Towards the 
close of his reign the treacherous murder of Aspar 
the Patrician, and his son Ardaburius, to whom Leo 
_had owed his throne; the violation of the Imperial 
word, solemnly given in order to lure Aspar from 
the sanctuary to which he had fled (the inviolability 
of the right of sanctuary Leo had just established by 
a statute); the same contempt of the laws of hos- 
pitality (the murder took place at a banquet in the 
Imperial palace, to which he had invited Aspar and 
his son), all this execrable perfidy was vindicated to 
a large part of his subjects, because Aspar was an 
Arian.1 The Eastern world was in danger of falling 
under the sway of the Cesar Ardaburius, who was 
either an open Arian, or but’a recent and suspicious 
convert. This was in itself enough to convict him 
and his partisans of treasonable designs, and to justify 
any measures which might avert the danger from the 
Emperor Leo. Empire. During the whole reign of Leo, 
Eutychianism had been repressed by the known or- 
thodoxy of the Emperor.2 Timotheus the Weasel 
had been permitted, as has been said, through the 
weak and suspicious favor of Anatolius, the Bishop 

1 Niceph. xv. 27. 

2 A law of Leo betrays the fears of the government of these monkish 
factions: ‘Qui in monasteriis agunt, ne potestatem habeant a monasteriis 


exeundi.””. The force of law was necessary to compel these disciples of 
Paul and Antony to be what they had taken vows to be. 


Crap. I. ZENO EXPELLED BY BASILISCUS. 321 


of Constantinople, to visit the court, but he had been 
repelled and sent into exile by the severe Emperor. 
But with the exception of the first disturbances ex- 
cited at Antioch by Peter the Fuller, the reign of 
Leo the Thracian was one of comparative religious 
peace. Eutychianism hid its head in the sullen 
silence of the monasteries. With the contested Em- 
pire on the death of Leo, the religious contests broke 
out in new fury. Zeno, who had married Leo’s 
daughter, Ariadne, was driven from the Zeno expelled 
a ona Ε by Basiliscus. 
throne by Basiliscus, the brother of Verina, αν. 476. 
the widow of Leo. With Basiliscus, the anti-Chalce- 
donian party rose to power. An Imperial encyclic letter 
branded with an anathema the whole proceedings at 
Chalcedon, and the letter of Pope Leo, as tainted with 
Nestorianism. Everywhere the Eutychian bishops 
seized upon the sees, and expelled the rightful prel- 
ates. Peter the Fuller, who had for a time been 
excluded, reascended the throne of Antioch. Paul 
resumed that of Ephesus. Anastasius of Jerusalem 
rendered his allegiance. Timotheus the Weasel came 
from his exile to Constantinople, and ruled the Em- 
peror Basiliscus with unrivalled sway.’ Acacius, the 
Bishop of Constantinople, was a man of great ability. 
He beheld the unwelcome presence, the increasing 
influence of the rival Patriarch of Alexandria, with 
jealous suspicion, and refused to admit him to the 
communion of the Church. Fierce struggles for 
power distracted Constantinople. On one side were 
1 See the triumphant reception of Timotheus in Constantinople, Evagr. 
“ae language of the Pope Simplicius shows the manner in which the 


hostile parties wrote of each other: ‘‘Comperi Timotheum parricidam, qui 
ZEgyptiace pridem vastator Ecclesiz, in morem Cain . . . ejectus a facie 


VOL. I. 21 


922 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book III. 


the Eutychian monks ; on the other, the Bishop Aca- 
cius and a large part of the populace and of the 
monks of Constantinople, for fierce bands of monks 
now appeared on either side. But his most powerful 
supporter was the Hermit Daniel, who descended from 
the pillar, where he had received the suppliant visits 
of the former Emperor, to take part in these tumults, 
that pillar which more sober Christians might almost 
have mounted in order to rise above the turbid at- 
mosphere of strife. With this potent ally the Bishop 
of Constantinople (probably indeed supported by the 
strong faction of the expelled Zeno) waged an equal 
war against the Emperor. Ere long the strange spec- 
tacle was presented of a Roman Emperor flying before 
a naked hermit, who had lost the use of his legs by 
standing for sixteen years on his column. Basiliscus 
too late revoked his encyclic letter. He fell, and Zeno 
Zenoempe. Tesumed the power. The tide turned against 
ror, 4D. 477. the Monophysite or anti-Chalcedonian party. 
But the rest, though some bishops hastened to make 
their peace with the Emperor and with Acacius, con- 
tended obstinately against the stream. Stephanus, the 
Bishop of Antioch, ‘was murdered in the church by 
the partisans of Peter the Fuller. Timotheus the 
Weasel, spared from all extreme chastisement on ac- 
count of his age, died; but in his place arose another 
monk, Peter, called Mongus, or the Stammerer, and 
laid claim to the see of Alexandria. Timotheus Solo- 
faciolus, however, under the Imperial authority, re- 
Dei, hoc est Ecclesiw dignitate seclusus.” . .. He then describes his re- 
sumption of the Alexandrian See: “Quo procul dubio Cain ipso longé 
detestabilior approbatur; ille siquidem a perpetrato semel facinore damna- 


tus abstinuit, hic profecit ad crimina majora post ponam.’ —Simplic. 
Epist. Labbe, 1070. 


Cuap. I. HENOTICON OF ZENO. 323 


sumed the Patriarchate, and endeavored to reconcile 
the heretics by Christian gentleness.!| The Emperor 
Zeno beheld with commiseration and dismay his dis- 
tracted empire; he determined, if possible, to assuage 
the animosities, and to reconcile the hostile factions. 
After a vain attempt to obtain the opinions of the 
chief ecclesiastical dignitaries, without assembling a 
new Council, a measure which experience had shown 
to exasperate rather than appease the strife, Zeno 
issued his famous Henoticon, or Edict of «-». 482. 
Union. This edict was composed, it was Zanes A 
believed, if not by Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, 
under his direction and with his sanction. It aimed 
not at the reconcilement of the conflicting opinions, 
but hoped, by avoiding all expressions offensive to 
either party, to allow them to meet together in Chris- 
tian amity; asif such terms had not become to both 
parties an essential part, perhaps the whole, of their 
Christianity. 

The immediate effects of the Henoticon in the East 
might seem to encourage the fond hope of success. 
The feud between the rival Churches of Constan- 
tinople and Alexandria was for a time appeased. 
Acacius and Peter the Stammerer recognized their 
mutual claims to Christian communion. Calendion, 
the Chalcedonian Bishop of Antioch, had been ban- 
ished to the African Oasis. Peter the Fuller had 
resumed the throne. Peter acceded to the Henoticon ; 
and these three Patriarchal churches commended the 
Imperial scheme of union to the Eastern world.? 


1 Liberatus says that the heretics used to ery out as he passed, “ Though 
we do not communicate with you, yet we love you.””—Breviar. Baronius 
is indignant at this “nimia indulgentia”’ of the bishop (sub ann. 478). 

2 Evagrius, iii. 26. 


994 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book III. 


It was but a transient lull of peace. The Henoti- 
Alexandria. con, without reconciling the two original 
conflicting parties, only gave rise to a third: in 
Three parties. Alexandria the two factions severed into 
three. One half of the Eutychian or anti-Chalce- 
donian party adhered to Peter the Stammerer; the 
other indignantly repudiated what they called the base 
concession of Peter; they were named the Acephali, 
without a head, as setting up no third prelate. The 
strong Chalcedonian party had nominated as successor 
John Talajas. to the mild Timotheus Solofaciolus, a man of 
a different character. John Talajas, while at Con- 
stantinople, had been compelled by the provident, but 
vain precaution, no doubt, of Acacius, to pledge him- 
self not to aspire to the see of Alexandria.1 The ob- 
ject of Acacius was to unite the Alexandrian Church 
under Peter the Stammerer, beneath the broad com- 
prehension of the Henoticon. No sooner was Timo- 
theus dead, and John Talajas safe at Alexandria, 
than he accepted the succession of Timotheus. On 
the union between Acacius and Peter the Stammerer, 
John Talajas fled to Rome; he was welcomed as a 
second Athanasius. 

For now a question had arisen, which involved the 
Question of Bishops of Rome, not merely as dignified 
Roman . . . 
supremacy. arbiters on a high and profound metaphysical 
question of the faith, but, vital to their power and dig- 
nity, plunged them into the strife as ardent and implac- 
able combatants. The Roman Pontiffs had already, at 
least from the time of Innocent I., asserted their in- 
alienable supremacy on purely religious grounds, as 
successors of St. Peter. If, as in the recent act of 


1 Evagrius, on the authority of Zacharias. 


Cuar. I. QUESTION OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. 325 


Hilarius, they had appealed to the laws of the empire, 
as confirmatory of that supremacy, it was to enforce 
more ready and implicit obedience. But with the 
world at large the ecclesiastical supremacy of Rome 
rested solely on her civil supremacy. The Pope was 
head of Christendom as Bishop of the first city in the 
world. Already Constantinople had put forth claims 
to coequal ecclesiastical, as being now of coequal 
temporal dignity. This claim had been ratified by 
the great Gicumenic Council of Chalcedon, — that 
Council which had established the inflexible line of 
orthodoxy between the divergent heresies of Nestorius 
and Eutyches. This was but the supplementary act, 
it was asserted, of a small and factious minority, who 
had lingered behind the rest; but, it appeared upon 
the records, it boasted the authority of the unanimous 
Council.!. The ambition of Acacius, now, under Zeno, 
sole and undisputed Bishop of Constantinople, was 
equal to his ability. He seemed watching the gradual 
fall of the Western Empire, the degradation of Rome 
from the capital of the world, which would leave Con- 
stantinople no longer the new, the second, rather the 
only Rome upon earth. The West, in the person of 
Anthemius, had received an emperor appointed by 
Constantinople; the Western Empire at one moment 
seemed disposed to become a province of the East. 
Acacius had already obtained from the Emperor (we 
must reascend in the course of our history to connect 
the East with the West), Leo the Thracian, who had 
ruled between Marcian and Zeno, a decree confirming 
to the utmost all the privileges of a Patriarchate claimed 
by Constantinople. In that edict Constantinople as- 


1 Compare Baronius sub ann. 472. 


326 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book III. 


sumed the significant and threatening title of ““ Mother 
of all Christians and of the orthodox Religion.” The 
Pope Simplicius had protested against this usurpation, 
but his protest is lost. The aspiring views of Acacius 
were interrupted for a short time by his fall under the 
Emperor Basiliscus; but his triumph (an unwonted 
triumph of a Bishop of Constantinople over an Em- 
peror), his unbounded favor with Zeno, might warrant 
the loftiest expectations. As the acknowledged and 
victorius champion of orthodoxy, Acacius could now 
take the high position of a mediator. In the Henot- 
icon Zeno the Emperor spoke his language, and in 
that edict appeared a manifest desire to assuage the 
discords of the East, and to combine the Churches 
in one harmonious confederacy. On the murder of 
Stephanus of Antioch, Acacius had consecrated his 
successor ; a step against which the Pope Simplicius, 
ap. 479. Re-who was watching all his actions, sent a 
monstrance . 

of Simplicius. strong remonstrance. Before the publica- 
tion of the Henoticon, the Western Empire had de- 
parted from Rome; but though her political suprem- 
acy, even her political independence was lost, she 
would not tamely abandon her spiritual dignity. For 
Rome, in the utmost assertion of her power against 
the Bishop of Constantinople, might depend on the 
support of above half the East; of all who were 
discontented with the Henoticon; and who, in the 
absorbing ardor of the strife, would not care on what 
terms they obtained the alliance of the Bishop of 
Rome, so that alliance enabled them to triumph over 
their adversaries. The dissatisfaction with the Henot- 
icon comprehended totally opposite factions, 
—the followers of Nestorius and of Euty- 


Factions in 
the Kast. 


παρ. L FACTIONS IN THE EAST. ByAl§ 


ches, who were impartially condemned on all sides ; — 
and the ecclesiastics, who considered it an act of pre- 
sumption in the Emperor to assume the right of legis- 
lating in spiritual matters, a right complacently admitted 
when ratifymg or compulsorily enforcing ecclesiastical 
decrees, and usually adopted without scruple on other 
occasions by the party with which the Court happened 
to side. But the strength of the malcontents was the 
high Chalcedonian or orthodox party, who condemned 
the Henoticon as tainted with Eutychianism, and de- 
nounced A cacius as holding communion with Eutychian 
Prelates, and therefore himself justly suspected of 
leaning to that heresy. In Constantinople the more 
formidable of the monks were of this party; the 
Bishops of Rome addressed more than once the clergy 
and the archimandrites of that city, as though assured 
of their sympathy against the Bishop and the Empe- 
ror. John Talajas, the exiled Bishop of Alexandria, 
filled Rome with his clamors. The Pope Simplicius 
addressed a remonstrance to Acacius, to which Aca- 
cius, who to former letters of the Bishop of Rome had 
condescended no answer, coldly replied that he knew 
nothing of such a Bishop of Alexandria; that he was 
in communion with the rightful Bishop, Peter Mongus, 
who, like a loyal subject, had subscribed the Emperor’s 
Edict of Union.! 

At this juncture died Pope Simplicius. On the 
vacancy of the see occurred a singular scene. Maren, 
The clergy were assembled in St. Peter’s. pininct 
In the midst of them stood up Basilius, “"?"""* 
the Patrician and Prefect of Rome, acting as Vice- 
gerent of Odoacer, the barbarian King. He ap- 


1 Liberat. Breviar. 


- 


328 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


peared by the command of his master, and by the 
admonition of the deceased Simplicius, to take care 
that the peace of the city was not disturbed by any 
sedition or tumult during the election. That election 
could not take place without the sanction of his Sover- 
ein. He proceeded, as the Protector of the Church 
from loss and injury by Churchmen, to proclaim the 
Decree of following edict: ‘‘ That no one, under the 
Odoacer. penalty of anathema, should alienate any 
farm, buildings, or ornaments of the Churches ; that 
such alienation by any Bishop present or future was 
null and void.” So important did this precedent ap- 
pear, so dangerous in the hands of those schismatics 
who would even in those days limit the sacerdotal 
power, that nearly twenty years after, a fortunate 
occasion was seized by the Pope Symmachus to annul 
this decree. In a synod of Bishops at Rome, the 
edict was rehearsed, interrupted by protests of the 
Bishops at this presumptuous interference of the laity 
with affairs of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.! The authen- 
ticity of the decree was not called in question ; it was 
declared invalid, as being contrary to the usages of the 
Fathers, enacted on lay authority, and as not ratified 
by the signature of any Bishop at Rome. The same 
Council, however, acknowledged its wisdom by re- 
enacting its ordinance against the alienation of Church 
property. 

Felix, by birth a Roman, succeeded to the vacant 
reixmt. see. He inherited the views and passions, 
Pope. . «fe . 
Αι. 488, ag well as the throne of Simplicius and his 
strife with the East. His first act was an indignant 
rejection of the Henoticon, as an insult to the Council 


i Synodus Romana. Labbe, sub ann. 502. 


Cuap. I. FELIX. III. 329 


of Chalcedon; as an audacious act of the Emperor 
Zeno, who dared to dictate articles of faith ; as a seed- 
plot of impiety.!. He anathematized all the Bishops 
who had subscribed this edict. At the head of a Roman 
synod, Felix addressed a strong admonitory letter to 
Acacius of Constantinople, and another, in a more 
persuasive tone, to the Emperor Zeno. These letters 
were sent into the East by two Bishops, Misenus and 
Vitalis, as Legates of Pope Felix. To Peter the 
Fuller was directed another letter, arraigning him as 
involved in every heresy which had ever afflicted the 
Church, or with something worse than the worst.” 
Whether he awaited any reply from the re- Excommuni- 


cates Peter 


fractory Bishop or not seems doubtful; but the Fuler. 
he proceeded to fulminate a sentence of deposition and 
excommunication against Peter in his own name, and 
to assume that this sentence would be ratified by Aca- 
cius of Constantinople. 

The Legate Bishops, Misenus and Vitalis, were 


1 Theodorus Lector. 

2 The introduction by Peter the Fuller of “ who wast crucified for us,” 
after the angelic hymn, the Holy, Holy, Holy, struck the ears of the ortho- 
dox with horror. Felix relates with all the earnestness of faith, and with 
all the authority of his position, the miraculous origin of this hymn in its 
simple form. During an earthquake at Constantinople, while the whole peo- 
ple were praying in the open air, an infant was visibly rapt to heaven, in the 
sight of the whole assembly and of the Bishop Proclus; and after staying 
there an hour, descended back to the earth, and informed the people that 
he had heard the whole host of angels singing those words. It was not 
merely that the words, added at Antioch, left it doubtful which of the 
Persons of the Trinity was crucified for us; the term-was equally impious 
as regarded any one of those consubstantial, uncreated, invisible, impassi- 
ble Beings. Καϑὸ τοίνυν ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός ἐστι τοῦ πατρός ὁμούυσιος, καὶ 
εἷς τῆς ἀδιαιρέτου τριώδος, ἄκτιστος καὶ ἀϑέατος, ἐμεμενῆκει ἀπαϑὴς καὶ 
ἀϑάνατος. Td οὖν ἄκτιστον καὶ ἀϑάνατον τῇ κτίσει μὴ σύνταττε, καὶ τοὺ 
τῆς πολυϑεΐας λόγον μὴ κράτυνε, διὰ τὸ λέγειν τεϑνάναι τὸν ἕνα τῆς τριάδος. 

—Epist. Felic. III. ad Petr. Full., Labbe, 1058. 


990 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


attacked at Abydus, and their papers seized. At 
Constantinople they were compelled, bribed, or be- 
trayed into communion with Peter the Stammerer ; 
at least they were present, and without protest, at 
the divine service when the name of Peter was read 
in the diptychs as lawful Bishop of Alexandria. On 
their return they were branded as traitors by Felix 
at the head of a synod at Rome, and degraded from 
their episcopal office. Felix proceeded (his tardiness 
had been sharply rebuked by the monks of Constan- 
tinople, especially the sleepless monks,! whose archi- 
Excommuni. Mandrite Cyril and his whole brotherhood 
tt Constant, Were the implacable enemies of Acacius) 
poset to issue the sentence of excommunication 
against the Bishop of Constantinople. The sentence 
was pronounced, not on account of heresy, but of 
obstinate communion with heretics—with Peter of 
July 28, 484. Alexandria, who had been condemned by 
Pope Simplicius for his violent conduct to the Papal 
Legates, and his contemptuous refusal to admit the 
third ambassador, Felix the Defensor, to his presence. 
Acacius was declared to be deprived, not merely of 
his episcopal, but of his priestly honors, separated from 
the communion of the faithful ; and this anathema, an 
unusual form, was declared irrepealable by any power.? 
But how was this process to be served on the Bishop 
of Constantinople? Acacius was strong in the favor 
of the Emperor Zeno. It is remarkable that, while he 


1 ’Akoiuqrot. 

2“ Nunquamque anathematis vinculis eruendus.”’ — Epist. Felic. ad 
Acacius. Felix, in a subsequent letter to Zeno, maintains this impla- 
cable doctrine : “Unde divino judicio nullatenus potuit, etiam cum id 
mallemus, absolvi.’’ — Epist. xi. Writing to Fravitta, his successor, he 
intimates that no doubt Acacius has gone, like Judas, to hell. 


Crap. I. SCHISM OF FORTY YEARS. aon 


thus precipitately proceeds to the last extremity against 
his rival Bishop, the Emperor is still sacred against 
the condemnation of the Bishop of Rome. Zeno had 
issued the Henoticon. Zeno had, by so doing, usurped 
the power of dictating religious articles to the clergy. 
Zeno, if he had not ordered, sanctioned all this re- 
establishment of the Bishops who had not acceded 
to the Council of Chalcedon; but to Zeno the lan- 
guage of the Pontiff is respectful, and bordering on 
adulation. The monks, the allies of Felix, were ready 
to encounter any peril. One of the sleepless fastened 
the fatal parchment to the dress of Acacius, as he 
was about to officiate in the Church. Acacius quietly 
proceeded in the holy ceremony. Suddenly he paused ; 
with calm, clear voice, he ordered the name Ang: Aap: 
of Felix, Bishop of Rome, to be struck out Acacius ex- 

commun!- 
of the roll of bishops in communion with «ates Felix. 
the East. The ban of Rome was encountered by the 
ban of Constantinople.! 

The schism divided the Churches of the East and 
West for nearly forty years, down to the genian of 
Pontificate of Hormisdas and the empire of ἮΙΣ 5%": 
Justinian, under whose sway Italy became subject to 
the Byzantine sovereign. Overtures of reconciliation 
were made, but Felix at least adhered inflexibly to his 
demand, that the name of Acacius should be erased 
from the diptychs. The great Eastern Patriarchs of 
Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, utterly disregard- 
ing the anathema of Rome, continued in communion 
with Acacius and his successors. Acacius, notwith- 
standing the incitements to spiritual rebellion addressed 


1 Julius, the messenger of Felix, quailed before the danger, or was bribed 
by Byzantine gold. 


992 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


by the Bishop of Rome to his clergy and to the turbu- 

lent monks, maintained his throne till his death 1 
Acacius (I trace rapidly the history of Eastern 

A.D. 489. Christianity until the reunion with the West) 


Fravitta δ Ὰ 
Bishop of | was succeeded by Fravitta or Flavitta, who 


rab occupied the throne but for four months.” 
Euphemius. ‘The election then fell on Euphemius. 

The Bishops of Constantinople might defy the spir- 
itual thunders of Rome, but though Acacius had once 
triumphed over an usurping Emperor, in daring to con- 
flict with the established Imperial authority, they but 
betrayed their own weakness. During the reign of the 
Emperor Anastasius, two Bishops of Constantinople, 
having justly or unjustly incurred the Imperial dis- 
pleasure, were degraded from their sees. The Em- 
peror Anastasius has been handed down to posterity 
with the praise of profound piety, and the imputation 
of Eutychianism, Arianism, and even Manicheism. 
Anastasius ascended the throne, though Euphemius 
had exerted all his authority to prevent his elevation, 
through his marriage with the Empress Ariadne. It 
is said that an old quarrel, while Anastasius was yet in 
a humbler station, rankled in both their hearts. The 
Bishop had threatened to shave the head of the domes- 
tic of the palace, and expose him as a spectacle to the 
people. The mother of Anastasius and his mother’s 
brother had been Arians, and Euphemius took care 
that dark suspicions of Anastasius on this vital point 
should be disseminated in the empire. But Anastasius, 
in the conscientious conviction of his own orthodoxy, 


1 Felicis Epist. x. xi.: ad Clerum et Plebem Constantin. et ad Monachos 
Constantin. et Bithynie. 

2 Felix addressed a letter to Fravitta adjuring him to abandon the cause 
of Acacius and Peter, and unite with Rome. 


Cuar. I. FOUR PARTIES IN THE EAST. 333 


and that virtue which had called forth the popular 
acclamation, “ Reign as you have lived,” dared to en- 
force despotic toleration. The East was now divided 
into four religious parties. 1. Those who, with the 
Roman Pontiff and the monks of Constantinople, held 
inflexibly to the Council of Chalcedon, and your parties 

demanded the distinct recognition of its doc- ρου 

trines. These were not content with the anathema 
against Nestorius, Eutyches, and Dioscorus: they in- 
sisted on including under the malediction Acacius and 
Peter the Stammerer.! 2. Those who, holding the 
tenets of Chalcedon, had yet subscribed the Henoticon, 
and for the sake of peace would not compel the accept- 
ance of the Chalcedonian decrees. Among these were 
Euphemius of Constantinople before the accession of 
Anastasius, and at first his successor Macedonius, and 
the Patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem ; all the four 
great Prelates had subscribed the Henoticon. 3. 
Those who subscribed the Henoticon, and abhorred the 
decrees of Chalcedon; these were chiefly the Patriarch 
of Alexandria, with the Bishops of Egypt and Libya. 
4. The Acephali, the Eutychian party, who held the 
Council of Chalcedon to be a Nestorian conclave, and 
cherished the memory of Dioscorus and of Eutyches. 
Anastasius issued his mandate, that no bishop should 
compel a reluctant people to adhere to the Council of 
Chalcedon; no bishop should compel a people which 
adhered to the Council of Chalcedon to abandon its 
principles. Many who infringed on this law of Impe- 
rial charity were deposed with impartial severity. 
Euphemius had extorted from the Emperor Anastasius, 
as a kind of price for his accession, a written assevera- 


1 Evagrius, iii. 31. 


994 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


tion of allegiance to the Council of Chalcedon, and an 
oath that he would maintain inviolate those articles 
which he had been with difficulty compelled to surren- 
der. Euphemius, it might seem, as a rebuke against 
the comprehensive measures of the Emperor, held a 
synod, in which the decrees of the Council of Chalce- 
don were confirmed ; but though this might be among 
the secret causes, it was not the crime for which Anas- 
tasius demanded the degradation of Euphemius.! 

The Isaurian rebellion disturbed the earlier period 
of the reign of Anastasius; it lasted for five years. 
The Bishop Euphemius tampered in treasonable pro- 
ceedings ; he was accused of traitorous correspondence, 
av.495. or at least of betraying the secrets of the 
state to these formidable rebels. The Emperor sum- 
moned a Council; Euphemius was deposed, sent into 
exile, and died in obscurity: he has left a doubtful 
fame. The Latin writers hesitate whether he was a 
martyr or a heretic.” 

Macedonius was promoted to the vacant See.? Mac- 
Macedonius, ©donius, a man of gentle but too flexible dis- 
Gishep ot position, began his prelacy by an act of unu- 
ae sual courtesy to his fallen predecessor. He 
performed the act of degradation with forbearance. 
Before he saluted him in the Baptistery, he took off the 
episcopal habiliment, and appeared in the dress of a 
Priest; he supplied the exile with money, borrowed 
money, for his immediate use. Macedonius subscribed 
the Henoticon, and still the four great Patriarchates 
were held in Christian fellowship by that bond of 
union. At the command of the Emperor, Macedo- 


1 Evagrius, Theophanes, p. 117. Victor, xvi. xvii. 
2 Walch, p. 974. 8 Theophanes. 


Cuar. I. MACEDONIUS. 335 


nius undertook the hopeless task of reconciling the 
four great Monasteries, among them that of the Akoi- 
metoi, and the female convent then presided over by 
Matrona, with the communion of the Church under 
the Henoticon. The inflexible monks would give up 
no letter of the Council of Chalcedon — they declared 
themselves prepared rather to suffer exile.t Matrona, 
a woman of the austerest life, endured with patience, 
which wrought strongly on men’s minds, acts of vio- 
lence used by a Deacon to compel her to submission. 
The mild Macedonius, instead of converting them, was 
himself overawed by their rigor into a strong partisan 
of the Council of Chalcedon; he inclined to make 
overtures to the Bishop of Rome, Gelasius I.; but 
Anastasius prohibited such proceedings; he had de- 
clared himself resolved against all innovations. 

The Eastern wars occupied for some years the mind 
of Anastasius. In the mean time the compressed fires 
of religious discord were struggling to burst forth and 
convulse the realm. Macedonius had hardened into a 
stern, almost a fanatic partisan of the Council of Chal- 
cedon. John Nicetas had ascended the throne of Al- 
exandria: he subscribed the Henoticon, but declared 
that it was an insufficient exposition of the true doc- 
trine, as not explicitly condemning the Council of 
Chalcedon. Flavianus filled the See of Antioch — 
Elias that of Jerusalem. Elias was disposed to reject 
the Council of Chalcedon; Flavianus was in- oo ,rusion at 
clined to rest on the neutral ground of the ΔῈ 
Henoticon. But the Monophysite party in Syria, 
which seemed greatly reduced in numbers, and content 
to seclude itself within the peaceful monasteries, sud- 

1 Theophanes, Chronog., ed Bekker, i. 219. 


990 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


denly having found a bold and reckless leader, burst out 
in fierce insurrection. Xenaias,' or Philoxenus, Bishop 
of Hierapolis, began to agitate the whole region by ace 
cusing Flavianus as a Nestorian. Flavianus, to excul- 
pate himself, issued his anathema against Nestorius and 
his opinions. Xenaias imperiously demanded the 
anathema, not of Nestorius alone, but of Ibas, The- 
odoret of Cyrus, and a host of other bishops, who from 
time to time had been charged with Nestorianism. 
Flavianus resisted. But the followers of Eutyches 
and Dioscorus sprung up on all sides. Eleusinius, a 
bishop of Cappadocia, and Nicias of the Syrian Laodi- 
cea, joined their ranks. Flavianus consented to involve 
all whom they chose thus to denounce in one sweeping 
malediction. Xenaias, flushed with his victory, still 
refused to absolve the timid bishop from the hated name 
of Nestorian. He required his explicit condemnation 
of the Council of Chalcedon, and of all who asserted 
the two natures in Christ. Flavianus still struggled in 
the toils of these inexorable polemics, who were re- 
solved to convict him, subscribe what he might, as a 
secret Nestorian. Swarms of monks crowded from the 
district of Cynegica, and filling the streets of Antioch, 
insisted on the direct condemnation of the Council of 
Chalcedon and the letter of Pope Leo.2 The people 
of Antioch rose in defence of their bishop, slew some 
of the monks, and drove the rest into the Orontes, 
where many lost their lives. Another party of monks 
from Ceelesyria, where Flavianus himself had dwelt in 
the convent of Talmognon, hastened to form a guard 
for his person. 


1 Xenaias, interpreted by the hostile monks of Jerusalem, “ The stranger 
to Catholic doctrine.” 
2 Evagrius, iii. 31, 32. 


Cuar. I. CONFUSION AT ANTIOCH. 337 
The Emperor Anastasius in the mean time on his 
return from the East found Macedonius, in- Α.ν. 505-6. 
stead of a mild assertor of the Henoticon, at the head 
of one, and that the most dangerous and violent of the 
religious factions. Rumors were industriously spread 
abroad, that the Emperor’s secret Manicheism had 
been confirmed in the East. A Persian painter had 
been employed in one of the palaces, and had covered 
the walls, not with the orthodox human forms wor- 
shipped by the Church, but with the mysterious and 
symbolic figures of the Manichean heresy. Anastasius, 
insulted by the fanatic populace, was escorted to the 
Council and to the churches by the Prefect at the head 
of a strong guard. Anastasius was driven by degrees 
(an Emperor of his commanding character should not 
have been driven) to favor the opposing party. John, 
Patriarch of Alexandria, sent to offer, it is .v. 510. 
said, two hundred pounds of gold, as a tribute, a sub- 
sidy, or a bribe, to induce the Emperor to abrogate the 
Council of Chalcedon. John, however, publicly main- 
tained the neutrality of the Henoticon, neither receiv- 
ing nor repudiating the Council. His legates were 
received with honor. Anastasius compelled the 
Bishop Macedonius to admit them to communion. 
Xenaias, the persecutor of Flavianus, was likewise 
received with honor. Worse than all, two hundred 
Eastern monks, headed by Severus, were permitted 
to land in Constantinople ; they here found an honor- 
able reception. Other monks of the opposite faction 
swarmed from Palestine. The two black-cowled ar- 
mies watched each other for some months, working in 
secret on their respective partisans.1 At length they 


1 Each party of course throws the blame of the insurrection on the other. 
VOL. I. 22 


338 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


a.v.511. came to a rupture ; and in their strife, which 
he either dared not, or did not care to control, the throne, 
the liberty, the life itself of the Emperor were in peril. 
The Monophysite monks in the church of the Arch- 
angel within the palace broke out after the ‘‘ Thrice 
Holy,” with the burden added at Antioch by Peter 
the Fuller, ‘“‘ who wast crucified for us.”” The ortho- 
dox monks, backed by the rabble of Constantinople, 
endeavored to expel them from the church ; they were 
not content with hurling curses against each other, 
sticks and stones began their work. There was a 
wild, fierce fray ; the divine presence of the Emperor 
lost its awe; he could not maintain the peace. The 
Bishop Macedonius either took the lead, or was 
Tumultsin compelled to lead the tumult. Men, women, 
Constanti- 5 

nople. children, poured out from all quarters; the 
monks, with their Archimandrites, at the head of the 
raging multitude, echoed back their religious war-cry : 
“Tt is the day of martyrdom. Let us not desert our 
spiritual Father. Down with the tyrant! the Mani- 
chean! he is unworthy of the throne.” The gates of 
the palace were barred against the furious mob ; the 
imperial galleys were manned, ready for flight to 
the Asiatic shore. The Emperor was reduced to 
the humiliation of receiving the Bishop Macedonius, 
whom he had prohibited from approaching his presence, 
as his equal, almost as his master. As Macedonius 
passed along, the populace hailed him as their beloved 
father; even the military applauded. Macedonius 
rebuked the Emperor for his hostility to the Church. 


The later writers, who are all of the orthodox party, ascribe it to the 
Syrian monks. Evagrius (iii. c. 44) quotes a letter of Severus, written be- 
fore he was Bishop of Antioch, charging the whole disturbance on Mace- 
donius and the clergy of Constantinople. 


Cuap. I. EXILE OF MACEDONIUS. 339 


Anastasius condescended to dissemble; peace was 
restored with difficulty. Macedonius seems to have 
been of feeble character, unfit to conduct this inter- 
necine strife between the Patriarchate and the Empire 
for supreme authority. Enemies would not be wanting, 
even had the strife not been for religion, to the enemy 
of the Emperor ; and all acts of enmity to the Patri- 
arch, whether sanctioned or not by the Emperor, would 
be laid to his charge. An accusation of loathsome 
incontinence was brought forward against the Bishop ; 
he calmly refuted it by proving its impossibility. His 
life was attempted; he pardoned the assassin. But 
this Christian gentleness softened into infirmity. One 
day he weakly subscribed a Creed, in which he recog- 
nized only the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople ; 
his silence about those of Ephesus and Chalcedon im- 
plied his rejection of their authority. His monkish 
masters broke out in furious invectives. The Patriarch 
stooped to appear before them in the monastery of Saint 
Dalmatius ; and not merely expressed his adhesion to the 
Council of Chalcedon, he uttered las anathema against 
all recusants of its decrees. The Emperor had been 
silently watching his opportunity. The Bishop was 
seized by night ; without tumult, without resistance, 
he was conveyed to the Asiatic shore, thence , ,. 51. 
into banishment at Euchaita, his predecessor’s Peposition . 
place of exile. A well-chosen synod of bish- “*°*er'™®: 
ops declared the deposition of Macedonius :! Timo- 
theus was elected Bishop of Constantinople. Timotheus 
1 Evagrius intimates that Macedonius was persuaded to a voluntary 
abdication. According to Theophanes, (Edd. Bekker, i. 240,) Anastasius 
endeavored to gain possession of tHe original registers of the Council of 


Chalcedon, to destroy or to corrupt them. Macedonius sealed them up and 
out them in a place of safety. 


840 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


signed the Henoticon; he went further, he laid his 
curse on the Council of Chalcedon. Timotheus was 
acknowledged by Flavianus of Antioch, by John of 
Alexandria, and by Elias of Jérusalem. But this con- 
cession secured not the throne of Flavianus. The 
Monophysite monk Severus, who had stirred up the 
populace of Alexandria and of Constantinople to relig- 
ious riot, and had won the favor of Anastasius as 
acquiescing in the Henoticon, now appeared in Antioch 
as the rival of Flavianus. Flavianus was deposed, 
Severus was bishop. He would now no longer keep on 
the mask ; he condemned in the strongest terms the 
Council of Chalcedon. The monkish party, which 
had been persecuted by, and in turn persecuted Fla- 
ap.5138.  vianus, and to which he had in vain made 
such ignoble concessions, was dominant in Antioch: 
Severus ruled supreme. At Jerusalem the orthodox 
were the strongest ; and Elias, who would not go all 
lengths with them, was likewise compelled to abdicate 
his see. Throughout Asiatic Christendom it was the 
same wild struggle. Bishops deposed quietly; or, 
where resistance was made, the two factions fighting in 
the streets, in the churches: cities, even the holiest 
places, ran with Christian blood. 

In Constantinople it was not the throne of the 
Bishop, but that of the Emperor which trembled to its 
Constentino- base. Anastasius, who had so nobly and suc- 
insurrection. cessfully wielded the arms of the Empire 
against the Persians, found ‘his power in Constantino- 
ple, in his Asiatic provinces, in his European domin- 
ions, crumbling beneath him. His foes were not on 
the frontier, they were at the gates of Constantinople, 
in Constantinople, in his palace. He was now eighty 


Cuar. I. CONSTANTINOPLE IN INSURRECTION. 341 


years old. The martial courage which he had dis- 
played in his Eastern campaigns might seem decayed ; 
his aged hand could no longer hold with the same 
equable firmness the balance of religious neutrality ; it 
may have trembled towards the Monophysite party ; 
he may have brought something of the irritability and 
obstinacy of age into the contest. The year 4.512. 
after the exile of Macedonius, Constantinople, at the 
instigation of the clergy and the monks, broke out 
again in religious insurrection. The blue and green 
factions of the Circus —such is the language of the 
times — gave place to these more maddening conflicts. 
The hymn of the Angels in Heaven was the battle-cry 
on earth, the signal for human bloodshed. Many 
palaces of the nobles were set on fire ; the officers of the 
crown insulted; pillage, conflagration, violence, raged 
through the city. A peasant who had turned monk 
was torn from the palace of the favorite Syrian minister 
of Anastasius, Marinus (he was accused of having 
introduced the profane burden to the angelic hymn) ; 
his head was struck off, carried about on a pole, with 
shouts, ‘ Behold the enemy of the Trinity.”! The 
~ hoary Emperor appeared in the Circus, and commanded 
the heralds to announce to the people that he was pre- 
pared to abdicate the Empire, if they could agree in 
the choice of his successor. The piteous spectacle 
soothed the fury of the people; they entreated Anas- 
tasius to resume the diadem. But the blood of two of 
his ministers was demanded as a sacrifice to appease 
heir vengeance.? 


1 Evagrius, iii. 44. 

2 The Pope Gelasius writes to the Emperor, “‘ You fear the people of 
Constantinople, who are attached to the name of Acacius; the people of 
Sonstantinople have preferred Catholic truth to the cause of their bishops 


942 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


But it is not insurrection in Constantinople alone, 
Revolt of the empire is in revolt on the question of the 
a.v.514.’ two natures in Christ. The first great relig- 
ious war, alas for many centuries not the last ! emper- 
ils the tottering throne of Anastasius. The Thracian 
Vitalianus is in open rebellion ; obtains a great victory 
over the Imperial general Hypatius; wastes Thrace, 
depopulates the whole country —the whole realm — 
up to the gates of Constantinople. He is before the 
city at the head of 60,000 men. His banner, his war- 
cry, is that of religious orthodoxy ; he proclaims him- 
self the champion, not of an oppressed people, of a 
nobility indignant at the tyranny of their sovereign, 
but of the Council of Chalcedon. Cries are heard 
within the city (not obscurely traced to the clergy and 
the monks) proclaiming Vitalianus Emperor; and the 
army of this first religious war in Christendom is com- 
posed chiefly of Huns and Barbarians, a great part of 
them still heathens. But Vitalianus had allies in the 
West: from some obscure quarrel, or from jealousy 
of the Emperor of the East, he boasts the alliance of 
Theodoric, the Arian Ostrogoth; as the champion of 
orthodoxy he boasts too the countenance of Hormisdas, 


Bishop of Rome.! 


Macedonius (then supposed to be unsound) and Nestorius. You have 
suppressed their tumults in the games, you will control them if they break 
out in religious insurrection.’’ A singular testimony to the two great rival 
causes which roused the mob of Constantinople to mutiny. 

1 The accounts of these transactions, and their dates, are confused, almost 
irreconcilable. According to Evagrius (iii. 43), Vitalianus was defeated 
in a naval battle, and fled in a single ship: according to Theophanes and 
others, he dictated terms of peace, the restoration of the bishops, and the 
Council of Heraclea. These terms Anastasius perfidiously violated, declar- 
ing that an emperor was justified, more than justified, in swearing to trea- 
ties, and breaking his oath to preserve his power, — ὁ δὲ παράνομος ἀναιδῶς 
ἔλεγεν νόμον εἶναι κελεύοντα θασιλέα κατ᾽ ἀνάγκην ἐπιορκεῖν καὶ ψεύδεσ' 


Cnar. I. STATE OF THE EAST. 343 


The grey hairs of Anastasius were again brought 
down to shame and sorrow ; he must stoop to jyumitiation 
an ignominious peace. If we are to credit the %4"™**"""* 
monastic historians, the end aimed at and attained by 
this insurrection, which had desolated provinces and 
caused the death of thousands of human beings, was a 
treaty which promised the reéstablishment of Mace- 
donius and Flavianus on the archiepiscopal thrones of 
Constantinople and Antioch; and the summoning a 
Council at Heraclea, in which Hormisdas, Bishop of 
Rome, was to appear by his legates, and no doubt 
hoped to dictate the decrees of the assembly. 

The few last inglorious years of the reign of Anas- 
tasius, its dark close, his miserable death, his a.v. 514-518. 
damnation, according to’ his relentless foes, must be re- 
served for the period when the Bishop of Rome (Hor- 
misdas) appears in a commanding character in the 
arena of Constantinople: and if he does not terminate, 
prepares the termination of the schism of above forty 
years between Eastern and Western Christianity. 

We turn away with willingness from the dismal and 
wearisome period, in which, in the East, all gite ο the 
that is noble and generous in religious con- ΚΣ 
viction disappears and gives place to dark intrigues and 
ignorant fury. Men suffer all the degradation and 
misery, incur all the sin of persecution almost without 
the lofty motive of honest zeal. It is a time of fierce 
and busy polemics, without a great writer. The He- 
noticon is a work of some skill, of some adroitness, in 
attempting to reconcile, in eluding, evading, theolog- 


ϑαι. ταῦτα ὁ παρανομώτατος wavixatoopwy, — p. 248. I think, with Gib- 
bon, following Tillemont and older authorities, that there is no doubt of the 
two insurrections in Constantinople. 


944 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


ical difficulties ; it is subtle to escape subtleties. But 
there was no vigorous and manly, even if intolerant 
writer, like Cyril of Alexandria, whom we contemplate 
with far different estimation in his acts and in his 
writings. 

But that which is the characteristic sign of the 
The influence times, as a social and political, as well as a 
ofthe monks: religious phenomenon, is the complete do- 
minion assumed by the monks in the East over the 
public mind, and the depravation of monasticism from 
its primal principles. Those who had forsaken the 
world aspire to rule the world. The minds which are 
to be absolutely estranged from earth mingle in its most 
furious tumults. Instead of total seclusion from the 
habits and pursuits of men, the Coenobites sweep the 
streets of the great cities in armed bodies, displaying 
an irregular valor which sometimes puts to shame the 
languid patriotism of the Imperial soldiery. Even the 
Eremites, instead of shrouding themselves in the re- 
motest wilderness, and burying themselves in the dark- 
est and most inaccessible caverns, mount their pillars in 
some conspicuous place, even in some place of public 
resort. While they seem to despise the earth below, 
and to enjoy the undisturbed serenity of heaven, they 
are not unconscious that they are the oracles as well as 
the objects of amazement to the admiring multitudes 
around; that Emperors come to consult them as 
seers and prophets, as well as infallible interpreters of 
divine truth. They even descend into the cities to be- 
come spiritual demagogues. ‘The monks, in fact, exer- 
cise the most complete tyranny, not merely over the 
laity, but over bishops and patriarchs, whose rule, 
though nominally subject to it, they throw off when- 


Cuap. I. TYRANNY OF THE MONKS. 345 


ever it suits their purposes. Those who might seem 
the least qualified, from their vague and abstract devo- 
tion, to decide questions which depended on niceties of 
language, on the finest rhetorical distinctions, are the 
dictators of the world. Monks in Alexandria, monks 
in Antioch, monks in Jerusalem, monks in Constanti- 
nople, decide peremptorily on orthodoxy and hetero- 
doxy. The bishops themselves cower before them. 
Macedonius in Constantinople, Flavianus in Antioch, 
Elias in Jerusalem, condemn themselves, and abdicate 
or are driven from their sees. Persecution is uni- 
versal ; persecution by every means of violence and 
cruelty ; the only question is in whose hands is the 
power to persecute. In Antioch, Xenaias (Philoxe- 
nus, a famous name) justifies his insurrection by the 
persecutions which he has endured; Flavianus bitterly 
and justly complains of the persecutions of Xenaias. 
Bloodshed, murder, treachery, assassination, even dur- 
ing the public worship of God, —these are the fright- 
ful means by which each party strives to maintain its 
opinions, and to defeat its adversary. Ecclesiastical 
and civil authority are alike paralyzed by combinations 
of fanatics ready to suffer or to inflict death, utterly 
unapproachable by reason. If they had not mingled 
in the fray, peace might perhaps have been restored 
with no serious detriment to orthodox doctrine. If in 
the time of Zeno there had been no monks, no Akoi- 
metoi, in Constantinople; if these fanatics had not 
been in treasonable correspondence with strangers, and 
supported by the Bishop of Rome— temperate and 
orthodox bishops like Macedonius and Flavianus might 
have allayed the storm. ‘The evil lay partly in the 
mode of life ; the seclusion, which fostered both igno- 


346 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


rance and presumption, and magnified insignificant 
matters to questions of spiritual life and death ; and the 
strong corporate spirit, which gave a consciousness of 
strength which bound them together as one man in 
whatever cause they might espouse. ‘The Emperor 
might depose a busy and refractory bishop, what could 
be done with a fraternity of a thousand men? They 
had already the principle of organization, union, and 
mutual confidence, and arms in their hands. They 
became legions. It is at the head of such an army that 
Severus, a stranger, makes himself formidable in Con- 
stantinople. A more powerful adverse army heads the 
mob of Constantinople and reduces the Emperor Anas- 
tasius to beg his crown, if not his life. Relying on 
these internal allies in the heart of his enemy’s camp, 
Vitalianus besieges Constantinople, and dictates a capit- 
ulation, embodying their demands and those of their 
acknowledged head, the Bishop of Rome. Alexandria 
is at the mercy of such hosts, who pour in from the 
surrounding monasteries on all sides. Even during 
the last years of Anastasius, at the election of the 
bishop, another Dioscorus, the chief Imperial officer, 
is slain in the streets. Hosts of monks encounter in 
Syria, meet in the field of battle, consider that zeal di- 
vine with which they strive, not to instruct and en- 
lighten, but to compel each other to subscribe the same 
confession, each slaying and dying in unshaken assur- 
ance that eternal salvation depended on the proper 
sense of the words “in” and ““ out of ;”” the acceptance 
or rejection of the Council of Chalcedon, includ- 
ing its dire anathemas.1. To monasticism may unques- 


11 have incorporated with my own observations many sentences from a 
passage in a writer of the old German school, Walch, who, having investi- 


Cuap. I. GELASIUS I. 347 


tionably be attributed the obstinate continuance, per- 
haps the fury, of the Monophysite war. We shall 
hereafter encounter monasticism in the West in another 
character, as compensating, at least in a great degree, 
for its usurpation of the dignity of a higher and holier 
Christianity, by becoming the guardian of what was 
valuable, the books and arts of the old world; as the 
missionary of what was holy and Christian in the new 
civilization ; as the chief maintainer, if not the restorer 
of agriculture in Italy; as the cultivator of the forests 
and morasses of the north; as the apostle of the hea- 
thens which dwelt beyond the pale of the Roman em- 
pire. 

We are again in the West, reascending and passing 
in review Latin Christianity and its primates pati: to the 
during the same, by no means ἃ brilliant Vet 
period: their sometimes enforced or uncongenial, but 
still ever ready intervention in the affairs of the East, 
from the time when Pope Felix and Acacius issue 
their hostile interdicts, and Constantinople 4-». 484-519. 
and Rome are at open war, more or less violent, dur- 
ing five and thirty years. 

Between the pontificate of Felix III. and the rup- 
ture with Constantinople (it might seem the getasius τ. 
implacable estrangement of the East and Mh) 48, 
West) to the accession of Hormisdas, intervened three 
Popes, Gelasius I., Anastasius I., Symmachus. 

Gelasius, a Roman, seemed, as a Roman, to assume 
the plenitude of Roman dignity. From the first, he 
adhered to all the lofty pretensions of his predecessor, 


gated the whole of these transactions with unrivalled industry and candor, 
and with the almost apathetic impartiality of his school, seems suddenly to 
break out into something approaching to eloquence. Walch, Ketzer-Ges- 
thichte, vol. vii. 


948 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


and in his frequent and elaborate writings vindicated 
all the acts of Felix. He inexorably demanded, as the 
preliminary to any peaceful treaty, that the name of 
Acacius should be expunged from the diptychs. No 
power could now retrieve or rescue Acacius from his 
inevitable doom — Acacius, who had not only disre- 
garded the excommunication of the Bishop of Rome, 
but presumed to emulate his power of pronouncing 
damnation. Constantinople must absolutely abandon 
the champion of her coequality, if not her superiority. 
Acacius, all his followers, all who respect his memory, 
must share his irrevocable proscription.1 The Roman 
Gelasius endeavors to awaken a kindred pride in the 
Emperor Anastasius, now the sole representative of 
Roman sovereignty ;” for Italy is under the dominion 
of the Goth. Gelasius might even seem to cherish 
some secret hope of the deliverance of Rome from its 
barbaric lord, by the intervention of the yet Roman 
East. But at the same time Gelasius asserts boldly, 
for the first time, in these strong and discriminating 
terms, the supremacy of the clergy in all religious mat- 
ters. ‘* There are two powers which rule the world, 

1 The letter of Gelasius to Euphemius of Constantinople is a model of 
that haughty humility which became the ordinary language of the Roman 
bishops. Euphemius had written, that by condescension and the best dis- 
position Gelasius could restore concord (‘‘ annectis condescendibilem me et 
optima dispositione revocare posse concordiam”’).—‘‘Do you call it con- 
descension to admit among true bishops the names of heretics and excom- 
municated persons, and of those who communicate with them and their 
successors? Is not this, instead of descending like our Lord from heaven 
to redeem, to plunge ourselves into hell?’’ ‘“ Hoe non est condescendere 
ad subveniendum, sed evidenter in inferum demergi.”” He summons Euphe- 
mius to meet him before the tribunal of Christ, in the presence of the apos- 
tles, and decide whether his austereness and asperity is not truly apostolic. 
— Epist. 1. 


2“ Te sicut Rome natus, Romanum principem, amo, colo, suscipio.’* ~ 
Ad Anastas., A.D. 493. 


Cnap. I. POPE ANASTASIUS. 349 


the Imperial and the Pontifical. You are the sov- 
ereign of the human race, but you bow your neck 
to those who preside over things divine.’ The 
priesthood is the greater of the two powers; it has 
to render an account in the last day for the acts of 
kings.” ἢ 

Pope Anastasius II., the successor of Gelasius, spoke 
a milder, more conciliatory, even more suppli- Pope Anas- 


tasius. 


ant language. He dared to doubt the damna- Nov. 24, 496. 
tion of a bishop excommunicated by the see of Rome: 
—<‘ Felix and Acacius are now both before a higher 
tribunal; leave them to that unerring judgment.” ὃ 
He would have the name of Acacius passed over in 


1 Gelasius refers to the authoritative example of Melchisedek, a type in- 
terpreted with curious variation during the Papal history. ‘“ In the oldest 
times Melchisedek was priest and king. The devil, in imitation of this 
holy example, induced the emperor to assume the supreme pontificate. 
But after Christianity had revealed the truth to the world, the union of the 
two powers ceased to be lawful. Neither did the emperor usurp the pon- 
tifical, nor the pontiff the imperial power. Christ, mindful of human 
frailty, has separated forever the two offices, leaving the emperors depend- 
ent on the pontiffs for their everlasting salvation, the pontiffs dependent on 
the emperors for the administration of all temporal affairs. So the ministers 
of God do not entangle themselves in secular business; secular men do not 
intrude into things divine.’ Pass over eight or nine centuries, and hear 
Innocent IV.; we give the pregnant Latin: ‘‘ Dominus enim Jehsus Christ- 
us . . . secundum ordinem Melchisedek, verus rex et verus sacerdc3 
existens, quemadmodum patenter ostendit, nunc utendo pro hominibus 
honorificentia regize majestatis, nune exequendo pro illis dignitatem pon- 
tificii apud Patrem, in apostolic&é sede non solum pontificatum, sed et re- 
galem constituit monarchatum, beato Petro ejusque successoribus terreni 
simul et ccelestis imperii concessos habemus.’’ — Apud Hoefler. Albert von 
Beham, p. 88. Stuttgard, 1847. 

2 “Quando etiam pro ipsis regibus domino in divino reddituri sunt ex- 
amine rationem.’’ — Ad Anastas., Mansi, vii. 

3 “ Namque et predecessor noster Papa Felix, et etiam Acacius illic pro- 
culdubio sunt: ubi unusquisque sub tanto judice non potest perdere sui 
meriti qualitatem.’”’ —Anastas. Epist. A.p. 496. This letter was sent to 
Constantinople by two bishops, Cresconius of Todi and Germanus of Capua, 
with private instructions, not recorded in history. 


350 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. ~ Boox III. 


silence, quietly dropped, rather than publicly expunged 
from the diptychs. This degenerate successor of St. 
Peter is not admitted to the rank of a saint. The 
Pontifical book (its authority on this point is indig- 
nantly repudiated) accuses Anastasius of having com- 
municated with a deacon of Thessalonica, who had 
kept up communion with Acacius; and of having 
Nov. 19, 498. entertained secret designs of restoring the 
name of Acacius in the services of the Church.! His 
death, according to Baronius, his sudden death by the 
manifest hand of God, destroyed altogether these hopes 
of peace. But how deep and lasting was the tradition 
of detestation against this meek renegade to papal au- 
thority, may be supposed by its survival for at least 
nine centuries. Dante beholds in hell the unhappy 
Anastasius, condemned forever for his leniency to the 
heresy of Constantinople.” 

On the death of Pope Anastasius, the contested elec- 
Symmachus. tion for the pontificate between Symmachus, 
a convert from paganism,’ and Laurentius, was exas- 
perated by these divergences of opinion on the schism 
with the East. Festus, the legate of Anastasius, the 
deceased Pope, at Constantinople, the bearer, as it was 


1 “ Revocare Acacium’’—so I translate the words—as Acacius had long 
been dead. —Lib. Pontif., Vit. Anastas. 
2 “EF quivi per l’ orribile soperchio 
Del puzzo, che Ἶ profondo abisso gitta 
Ci raccostammo dietro ad un coperchio 
D’ un grand’ avello, ov’ io vidi una scritta, 
Che diceva: Anastagio Papa guardo, 
Lo qual trasse Fotino della via dritta.’’ 
Fotinus is said to have been the Deacon of Thessalonica. 

8 “Catholica fides, quam in sede beati Petri, veniens ex paganitate, 
suscepi.’’ — Epist. ad Anastas. The date of this is uncertain. Was he 
a son or descendant of the famous Symmachus? The latter is more 
probable. 


(ΗΑ. I. DEATH OF POPE ANASTASIUS. 351 


supposed, of conciliatory terms obtained by the con- 
cessions of the Pope, on his return to Rome, threw 
himself as a violent partisan into the cause of Lau- 
rentius. The Emperor Anastasius himself, either in 
private letters to his adherents in Rome or in some 
public document, accused the successful Symmachus, 
who, by the decision of King Theodoric, had obtained 
the throne,! as a Manichean ; and as having audacious- 
ly conspired with the Senate of Rome (a singular 
Council for the Pope) to excommunicate the Emperor. 
The sovereign of the East inflexibly withheld the cus- 
tomary letters of gratulation on the accession of Sym- 
machus. The apologetic invective of Symmachus to 
the Emperor is in the tone of fearless hostility. He 
retorts against the Eutychian the odious charge of 
Manicheism. He denies the excommunication of the 
Emperor Anastasius ; Acacius only was excommuni- 
cated. Yet he leaves him to the inevitable conclusion 
that all who were in communion with the excommuni- 
cate must share their doom.? Anastasius is arraigned 
as departing from his boasted neutrality only against 
the Catholics. The unyielding, almost turbulent resist- 
ance of the Roman party in Constantinople is justified 
by the aggressions assumed to be entirely on the part 
of the tyrannical Emperor. Peace between two such 
opponents was not likely to make much prog- 4-». 498-514. 
ress. Throughout the pontificate of Symmachus, the 
Roman faction in the East kept up that fierce and 
tumultuous, or more secret and brooding opposition, 
which lasted till the death of Anastasius. Symmachus 
may have heard the first tidings of the orthodox revolt 


1 See on, under the reign of Theodoric, the elevation, struggle, and final 
establishment of Symmachus. 
2 Between 499-512. Baronius places it 503. 


352 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


of Vitalianus; his successor Hormisdas reaped the 
fruits of the humiliation of Anastasius, followed in due 
time by the reconciliation of the Greek and Latin 
Churches.! 


1 See on, under the reign of Theodoric. 


Crap. II. PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 3038 


CHAPTER If. 
CONVERSION OF THE TEUTONIC RACES. 


CHRISTIANITY within the Roman Empire might 
seem endangered in its vital existence by these un- 
genial inward dissensions. Its lofty assertions that it 
came down from heaven as a religion of peace — of 
peace to the individual heart of man, as reconciling 
it with God, and instilling the serene hope of another 
life — of peace which should incorporate mankind in 
one harmonious brotherhood, the type and _preéstab- 
lishment of the sorrowless and strifeless state of beati- 
tude — might appear utterly belied by the claims of 
conflicting doctrines on the belief, all declared to be 
essential to salvation, and the animosities and bloody 
quarrels which desolated Christian cities. Anathema 
instead of benediction had almost become the general 
Janguage of the Church. Religious wars, at least rare 
in the pagan state of society, seemed now a new and 
perpetual source of human misery—a cause and a 
sion of the weakness and decay, and so of the inevi- 
table dissolution, of the Roman Empire. 

But Christianity had sunk into depths of the human 
heart, unmoved by these tumults, which so fiercely 
agitated the surface of the Christian world. Far be- 
low, less observed, less visible in its mode of operation, 
though manifest in its effects, was that profound con- 

VOL. I. 23 


304 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


viction of the truth of the Gospel, that infelt sense 
of its blessings, which enabled it to pursue its course 
of conversion throughout the world, to bring the Ro- 
man mind more completely under subjection, and one 
by one to subdue the barbarian tribes which began to 
overspread and mingle with the Greek and Latin 
population of the Empire. For Christianity had that 
within it, which overawed, captivated, enthralled the 
innate or at least universal religiousness of man- 
kind; that which was sufficiently simple to arrest by 
its grandeur the ruder barbarian, while, by its deeper 
mysteries, it led on the philosophic and reflective mind 
through unending regions of contemplation. It had 
its one Creator and Ruler of the universe, one God, 
one Redeemer, one Spirit, under which the ancient 
polytheism subsided into a subordinate hierarchy of 
intermediate beings, which kept the imagination in 
play, and left undisturbed almost all the hereditary 
superstitions of each race. It satisfied that yearning 
after the invisible, which seems inseparable from our 
nature, the fears and hopes which more or less vaguely 
have shadowed out some future being, the fears of 
retribution appeased by the promises of pardon, the 
hope of beatitude by its presentiments of peace. It 
had its exquisite goodness, which appealed to the in- 
delible moral sense of mankind, to the best affections 
of his being; it had that equality as to religious privi- Ὁ 
leges, duties, and advantages, to which it drew up all 
ranks and classes, and both sexes (slaves and females 
being alike with others under the divine care), and the 
abolition, so far, of the ordinary castes and divisions 
of men; with the substitution of the one distinction, 


the clergy and the laity, and perhaps also that of the 


Cuap. II. CONVERSION OF GERMANS. 300 


ordinary Christian and the monk, who aspired to what 
was asserted and believed to be a higher Christianity. 
All this was, in various degrees, at once the manifest 
sign of its divinity, and the secret of its gradual sub- 
jugation of nations at such different stages of civiliza- 
tion. It prepared or found ready the belief in those 
miraculous powers, which it still constantly declared 
itself to possess; and made belief not merely prompt 
to accept, but creative of, wonder, and of perpetual 
preterhuman interference. Some special causes will 
appear, which seemed peculiarly to propitiate certain 
races towards Christianity, while their distinctive char- 
acter reacted on their own Christianity, and through 
them perhaps on that of the world. 

We are not at present advanced beyond the period 
when Christianity was in general content (this indeed 
gave it full occupation) to await the settle- conversion 
ment of the Northern tribes, if not within the δ είς the 
pale, at least upon the frontiers of the Em- *"?"* 
pire: it had not yet been emboldened to seek them out 
in their own native forests or morasses. But it was 
a surprising spectacle to behold the Teutonic nations 
melting gradually into the general mass of Christian 
worshippers. In every other respect they are still dis- 
tinct races. The conquering Ostrogoth or Visigoth, 
the Vandal, the Burgundian, the. Frank, stand apart 
from the subjugated Roman population, as an armed 
or territorial aristocracy. They maintain, in great 
part at least, their laws, their language, their habits, 
their character; in religion alone they are blended into 
one society, constitute one church, worship at the same 
altar, and render allegiance to the same hierarchy. 
This is the single bond of their common humanity ; 


» 


950 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book UL. 


and so long as the superior Roman civilization enabled 
the Latins to retain exclusively the ecclesiastical func- 
tions, they might appear to have retreated from the 
civil power, which required more strenuous and robust 
hands to wield it, to this no less extensive and impor- 
tant influence of opinion; and thus held in suspense 
the trembling balance of authority. They were no 
longer the sovereigns and patricians, but they were 
still the pontiffs and priests in the new order of society. 

There might appear in the Teutonic religious char- 
Teutonic acter a depth, seriousness, and tendency to 
quik yk Vath mysterious, congenial to Christianity, 
which would prepare them to receive the Gospel. The 
Grecian polytheist was often driven into Christianity 
by the utter void in his religion, and by the incon- 
gruity of its poetic anthropomorphism with the prog- 
ress of his discursive reason, as well as by his weari- 
ness with his unsatisfactory and exhausted philosophy: 
the Roman was commanded by its high moral tone 
and vigor of character. But each had to abandon 
temples, rites, diversions, literature, which had the 
strongest hold on his habits and character, and so utterly 
incongruous with the primitive Gospel, that until Chris- 
tianity made some steps towards the old religion by 
the splendor of its ceremonial, and the incipient pagan- 
izing, not of its creed, but of its popular belief, there 
were powerful countervailing tendencies to keep him 
back from the new faith. And when the Greek 
entered into the Church, he was not content with- 
out exercising the quickness of his intelligence, and 
the versatilities of his language on his creed, without 
analyzing, discussing, defining everything. Or by in- 
truding that higher part of his philosophy, which best 


παρ. IL. TEUTONIC RELIGION. 307 


assimilated with Christianity, he either philosophized 
Christianity, or for a time, as under the Neo-Platonists 
and Julian, set up a partially Christianized philosophy 
as a new and rival religion. The inveterate corrup- 
tion of Roman manners confined that vigorous Chris- 
tian morality, its strongest commendation to the Roman 
mind, at first within the chosen few who were not 
utterly abased by licentiousness or by servility: and 
even with them in large part it was obedience to civil 
authority, respect for established law, perhaps in many 
a kind of sympathy with the lofty and independent 
sacerdotal dignity, the sole representative of old Roman 
freedom, which contributed to Christianize the Latin 
world. 

How much more suited were some parts of the 
Teutonic character to harmonize at first with Chris- 
tianity, and to keep the proselytes in submission to 
the authority of its instructors in these sublime truths ; 
at the same time to invigorate the Church by the 
infusion of its own strength and independence of 
thought and action, as well as to barbarize it with 
that ferocity which causes, is increased by, and main- 
tains, the foreign conquests of ruder over qeutonic 
more polished races! Already the German *"#'°" 
had the conception of an illimitable Deity, towards 
whom he looked with solemn and reverential awe. 
Tacitus might seem to speak the language of a Chris- 
tian Father, almost of a Jewish prophet. Their gods 
could not be confined within walls, and it was degrada- 
tion to these vast unseen powers to represent them 
under the human form. Reverential awe alone could 
contemplate that mysterious being which they called 
divinity.!. These deities, or this one Supreme, were 


1“ Czxterum non cohibere parietibus Deos, neque in ullam humani oris 


358 LATIN . CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


shrouded in the untrodden, impenetrable forest. Such 
seems to have been the sublime conception above, if 
not anterior to, what may be called the mythology of 
Teutonic religion. This mythology was the same, 
only in its elemental form, throughout the German 
tribes, with that which, having passed through more 
than one race of poets, grew into the Eddas of Scan- 
dinavia. Vestiges of this close relationship are traced 
in the language, in the mythic conceptions, and in the 
superstitions of all the Teutonic tribes. Certain relig- 
ious forms and words are common to all the races of 
Teutonic descent.!. In every dialect appear kindred or 
derivative terms for the deity, for sacrifice, for temples, 
and for the priesthood. This mythic religion was in 
some points a nature-worship, though there might have 
existed, as has been said, something more ancient, and 
superior to the worship of the visible and impersonated 
powers or energies of the material world. The Romans 
discovered, not without wonder, that the supreme deity 
of the actual German worship was not invested in the 
attributes of their Jove, but rather of Mercury.2. There 
Woden. is no doubt that Woden was the divinity to 
whom they assigned this name, a name which, in its 
various forms, (it became at length Odin,) is common 
to the Goths, Lombards, Saxons, Frisians, and other 
tribes. In its primitive conception, if any of these 
conceptions were clear and distinct, Woden appears to 
have been the all-mighty, all-permeating Spirit — the 
Mind, the primal mover of things, the all-Wise, the 


speciem adsimilare ex magnitudine ccelestium arbitrantur, Deorumque no- 
minibus appellant secretum illud quod sola reverentia vident.’’ — Tac. Ger- 
man. 1x. 
1 Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, Einleitung, pp. 9-11 (2d edit.). The 
whole large volume is a minute and laborious commentary on this axiom. 
2 “ Deum maximé Mercurium colunt.’’ — Tac. Germ. ix. 


Cuap. II. TEUTONIC RELIGION. 359 


God of speech and of knowledge.' But with a warlike 
people, the supreme deity could not but be a god of 
battle, the giver of victory. He possessed therefore 
the attributes of Mars blended with those of Mercury.” 
The conduct or the reception of departed spirits, which 
belonged to the pagan Mercury, may have been one 
function which led to his identification with the Teu- 
tonic Woden. Already, no doubt, their world of the 
dead was a rude Valhalla. 

In the earlier belief, the Thunderer, with the sun, 
the heavenly bodies, and the earth, the great objects of 
nature-worship, held only the second place. The Her- 
thus of Tacitus was doubtless Hertha, the mother 
earth, or impersonated nature, of which he describes 
the worship in language singularly coincident with 
that of the Berecynthian goddess of Phrygia.’ 


1 “ Wodan sané quem adjecta litera Gwodan dixerunt, ipse est qui apud 
Romanos Mercurius dicitur, et ab universis Germanie gentibus ut Deus 
adoratur.”” — Paul. Diacon. i. 9. See also Jonas Bobbiens. Vit. Bonifac. 
(Dies Mercurii beeame Wodan’s day,— Wednesday.) Compare Grimm, 
p- 116, Grimm, pp. 108, &c., and the whole article Wuotan, which he closes 
with the following observation: ‘‘ Aber noch zu einen andern Betrachtung 
darf die hohe stelle fahren, welche die Germanen ihrem Wuotan anweisen. 
Der Monotheismus ist etwas so nothwendiges und wesentliches, das fast 
alle Heiden in ihrer Gotter bunten Gewimmel, bewusset oder unbewusset, 
darauf ausgehn, einen obersten Gott anzuerkennen, der schon die Eigen- 
schaften aller iibrigen in sich trigt, so dass diese nur als seine Einfliisse, 
verjiingenden und erfrischungen, zu betrachten sind. Daraus erklirt sich 
wie einzelne Eigenheiten bald einem bald diesem einzelnen Gott dargelegt 
werden, und warum die hiéchste Macht, nach Verschiedenheit der Volker 
auf den einen oder den andern derselben fuallt.’’ 

2 Paulus Diacon., loc. cit. He is called Sigvédr (Siegvater) in the Edda. 
— Grimm, p. 122. 

3 After recounting the tribes who worship this goddess, he proceeds: 
“In commune Herthum, id est, Terram matrem colunt, eamque intervenire 
rebus hominum, invehi populis arbitrantur. Est in insula Oceani castum 
nemus, dicatum in eo vehiculum, veste contectum, attingere uni sacerdoti 
concessum. Is adesse penetrali Deam intelligit, vectamque bobus feminis 
multa cum veneratione prosequitur. Leti tunc dies, festa loca, queecunque 
adventu hospitioque dignatur, Non arma sumunt, clausum omne ferrum, 


900 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


There were other religious usages — most absolutely 
repugnant to Christianity, and demanding, as it were, 
her mild intervention,—so universal as to 
imply a closer relationship than that of un- 
connected races, which resemble each other from 
being in the same state of civilization. From the 
borders of the Roman Empire to the shores of the 
Baltic, from the age of Tacitus to that of the Northern 
Chroniclers, human sacrifices appeased the gods, or 
rewarded them for the victories which they had be- 
stowed upon their worshippers. The supreme god, 
Woden, the Mercury of Tacitus, was propitiated by 
human victims. The tribunes and principal centurions 
in the army of Varus were slain on these horrid altars. 
The Goths sacrificed their captives to the god of war.? 
The Greek historian of the age of Justinian imputes 


Human 
sacrifices. 


pax et quies tunc tanttm nota, tune tantiim amata, donec idem sacerdos 
satiatam conyersatione mortalium Deam templo reddit; mox vehiculum et 
vestes, et, sicredere velis, numen ipsum secreto lacu abluitur. Servi min- 
istrant, quos statim idem lacus haurit. Arcanus hinc terror, sanctaque 
ignorantia, quid sit illud quod tantum perituri vident.’’ — Tacit. Germ. xl. 
Contrast and compare these secret and awful rites (and their “ truce of 
God’’) with Lucretius, — 

Quo nunc insigni per magnas preedita terras 

Horrificé fertur diving Matris imago .. . 

Ergo cum primum magnas invecta per urbes 

Magnificat tacita mortales muta salute : 

JEre atque argento sternunt iter omne viarum, 

Largifica stipe donantes, ninguntque rosarum 

Floribus, umbrantes Matrem comitumque catervas. 

ii. 597 et seq. 
(Also Ovid. Fasti, iv. 337.) Grimm, in another part of his book, illustrates 
all this by a circumstance related during the persecution of the Christian 
Goths by Athanaric (Sozom. H. E. vi. 37.) An image on a wagon. was 
led in procession round the tents of the people; all who refused to worship 
and make their offerings to this Gothic deity were burned alive in their 
tents. 
1 Tac. Germ. ix. and xxxix. Ann. i. 61. The Hermanduri and Catti 
are particularly mentioned as slaying human victims. 
2 Jornandes, 86. 


Cuap. II. ANIMAL SACRIFICES. 361 


the same ferocious usage to the Thuletes (the Scan- 
dinavians), and to the Heruli;} Sidonius A pollinarius 
to the Saxons.?. The Frisian law denounces not merely 
the penalty of death, but describes as an immolation to 
the gods the punishment of one who violates a temple. 
At a later period St. Boniface charges some of his 
Christian converts with the sale of captives to the 
pagans for the purpose of sacrifice? At the great 
temple at Upsala every kind of animal was suspended 
in sacrifice: seventy-two dogs and men, mingled to- 
gether, were counted on one occasion.* The northern 
poetry contains many vestiges of these human immola- 
tions. The Northmen are said by Dithmar of Merse- 
burg to have sacrificed every year, about Christmas, 
ninety-nine men in a sacred place in Sea-land. This 
execrable custom was suppressed by the Em- «.». 926. 
peror Henry I. the Fowler.® 

Among animals the horse was the chosen victim of 
all the Teutonic tribes. It was offered in the anima 
age of Tacitus in the German forests, which “7"°* 
had been just penetrated by the Roman arms, and, 
according to the Sagas, by the yet unconverted Danes 
and Swedes. 

Throughout the wide regions occupied by the Teu- 
tons the sacred grove was the sanctuary of yo, 
the deity. The Romans could not tread "°v* 


1 Procop. de Bell. Gothic. ii. 14, ii. 15. 

2 Bpist. viii. 5. 

3 “Quod quidem ex fidelibus ad immolandum paganis sua venundent 
mancipia.’’ — Epist. xxv. 

4 “Tta etiam canes, qui pendent cum hominibus, quorum corpora mixta 
suspensa, narravit mihi quidam Christianorum se septuaginta duo vidisse.”” 

5 Miiiler, Saga Bibliothek. ii. 560, v. 98. See also, in Mr. Thorpe’s 
Mythology of Scandinavia, a copious list of references on the sanctity of 
groves, vol. i. p. 255 (note); on temples, p. 259; on human sacrifices, p. 264. 


562 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox Tilt 


without awe these dark dwelling-places of the gods of 
their enemies ; they were astonished at the absence of 
all images, and perhaps did not clearly distinguish the 
shapeless symbols which were set up in some places, 
from the aged trunks, which were also the objects of 
worship. The reverence for these hallowed places, the 
adoration of certain trees, survived the introduction of 
Christianity. The early missionaries and the local 
councils are full of denunciations against this inveterate 
heathen practice. We shall behold St. Boniface and 
others, as their crowning triumph, daring to hew down 
stately trees, the objects of the veneration of ages, and 
the barbarians standing around, awaiting the event in 
sullen suspense, and leaving their gods, as it were, on 
this last trial. If they were gods, would they endure 
this contumelious sacrilege ? 

The belief in the immortality of the soul, and in 
another life, though not perhaps so distinct, or con- 
nected with the transmigration of the soul, as in Gaul, 
yet seems to have been universal, dominant ; as far as 
warlike contempt of death, an active and influential 
faith. But it was to most men vague, dreary, dismal, 
— the Nifleheim, the home of clouds and darkness, was 
the common lot; the Valhalla that alone of the noble, 
and of select and distinguished warriors. 

The priesthood were held in the same reverence 
throughout Germany. It was not an organized and 
Priesthood. powerful hierarchy, or a separate caste, like 
that of the Druids in Gaul and Britain;! but the 


1 Cesar says of the Germans, “ Neque Druides habent qui rebus divinis 
presint, neque sacrificiis student.””— B. G. vi. 21. This, though not strictly 
true, is true in the sense in which Cxsar wrote, as contrasted with the hier- 
archy of Gaul. —‘Ungleich betrichtlicher war in Zahl und ausbildung 
das celtische Priesterthum.’’ — Grimm. 


Cuap. II. PRIESTHOOD. 363 


priests officiated in and presided over the sacred cere- 
monials of sacrifice and worship, and administered jus- 
tice. In the early German wars, when Rome was, as 
it were, invading the sanctuaries of the Teutonic 
deities, the priesthood appear as a kind of officers of the 
god of war, enforcing discipline, branding cowardice, 
and inflicting punishment, which the free German spirit 
would endure only from those who bore a divine com- 
mission.! In all affairs of public concern — the priest ; 
in private affairs — the head of the family, interpreted 
the lots by which the gods rendered their oracles.? 
The priest or the king might alone harness the sacred 
horses; the allusions to the priesthood in the late 
writers on the various conquering tribes, are not very 
frequent, but sufficient to show that they had that ven- 
eration inseparable from the character of persons who 
performed sacrifices, consulted the gods, and by aus- 
pices, or other modes of divination, predicted victory or 
disaster.? Prophetic women characterize the Teutonic 
faith in all its numerous branches. The Velleda of 
Tacitus, who ruled like a Queen, and was worshipped 
almost as a goddess, is the ancestress of the Nornas of 
; 4 : ἐ 
the poetic Sagas.4 In the East the gift of prophecy 

1“ Ceterum neque animadvertere, neque vincire, nec verberare quidem, 
nisi sacerdotibus permissum; non quasi in poenam, nec ducis jussu, sed 
velut Deo imperante, quem adesse bellantibus credunt.’’ — Tacit. Germ. vil. 

2 Tac. Germ. x. and xi. A priest of the Catti was led in the triumph of 
Germanicus. — Strabo. 

3 Even Grimm’s industry is baffled by the question of the power of the 
priesthood in Germany: ‘‘ Aus der folgenden zeit und bis zur einfiihrung 
des Christenthums, haben wir fast gar keine kunde weiter wie es sich in 
innern Deutschland mit dem priestern verhielt: ihr dasein folgt aus den 
der tempel und opfer.’’ —p. 61. Among the Anglo-Saxons the priests 
might not bear arms, or ride, except on a mare. — Bede, Hist. Ecce. ii. 13. 

4 Tac. Germ. viii. Hist. iv. 61. ‘Ea virgo, nationis Bructerz, laté 
imperitabat. Vetere apud Germanos more, quo plerasque foeminarum 


fatidicas, et augescente superstitione, arbitrantur Deas.’’ Compare iv. 65, 
v. 24, Grimm, Art. Weise Fraucn. 


364 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book ΠῚ. 


is sometimes, but rarely, vouchsafed to females; in 
Greece it was equally shared by both sexes ; the seer 
or prophet is the exception in the Northern my- 
thology. This reverence for women, especially for 
sacred virgins, no doubt prepared them to receive 
one article of the new religious faith, which had 
already begun to grow towards its later all-absorbing 
importance ; while it harmonized with the general ten- 
dency of Christian doctrine to elevate the female sex. 
Such was the general character of the Teutonic re- 
ligion, disposed to the dark, the awful, the mysterious, 
with a profound belief in prophetic revelations, and a 
priesthood accustomed to act in a judicial, as well as in 
Ἐπ ΠΗ tat religious capacity. And with such religious 
Christianity. conceptions, and habits of thought and feel- 
ing, the Northern tribes, first on the frontiers, after- 
wards within the frontiers, and gradually in the heart 
of the Roman Empire, came into the presence of 
Christianity — of Christianity now organized under a 
powerful priesthood, a hierarchy of bishops, priests, and 
inferior clergy: laying claim to divine inspiration ; and 
though that divine inspiration was gathered and con- 
centred, as it were, into a sacred book—in a wider 
and more vague and indistinct sense, it remained with 
the rulers of the Church. The Teutonic conqueror, 
already expatriated by the thirst for conquest or the 
ageression of more martial tribes, by his migration had 
broken off all local associations of sanctity ; he had left 
far behind him his hallowed grove,! and his reeking 
altar ;2 even the awe of his primeval forests must have 
1 The Lombards even in Italy found stately trees to worship. See Mura- 
tori, Dissert. 59, especially a curious quotation about a holy tree in the 
dukedom of Benevento. The Gallic Councils (Arles, 452; Tours, 597 ; 


Nantes, 658) prohibit the worship of trees, the latter of certain stones. 
2 Luitprand. Leg. 1. vi. 30. 


Cuar. I. TEUTONS ENCOUNTER CHRISTIANITY. 8365 


gradually worn away as he advanced into the southern 
sunshine, and took possession of the regular towns or 
the cultivated farms of his Roman subjects. 

The human sacrifices not merely belonged of ancient 
usage to these gloomy sanctuaries: but even before 
they had learned the Christian tenet, that all sacrifice 
had ceased with the one great sacrifice on the cross, 
the milder manners, which they could not but insensi- 
bly, if slowly, acquire by intercourse with more pol- 
ished nations, would render such dire offerings more 
and more unfrequent: they would be reserved for sig- 
nal occasions, till at length they would fall into total 
desuetude. 

In one respect, in which the genius of Christianity 
might have been expected to clash with his own re- 
ligious notions, Christianity had already advanced 
many steps to meet the Teuton. The Christian God, 
and even the gentle Saviour of mankind, had qs Goa 
become a God of battle. The cross, the °f »attle: 
symbol of Christian redemption, glittered on the stand- 
ards of the legions; and every victory, and every new 
conquest, might encourage the hope that this God, the 
God of the southern people, did not behold them with 
disfavor, was deserting his own votaries, and would 
gladly receive and reward the allegiance of more manly 
and valiant worshippers. Notwithstanding the proud 
consciousness of their own superior prowess as warriors, 
the Teutonic conquerors could not enter into the do- 
minions of Rome, cross the Roman bridges, march 
along the Roman roads, encamp before the walled 
cities, with their towers, temples, basilicas, forums, 
aqueducts, baths, and churches now aspiring to grand- 
eur, if not magnificence, without awe at the superior 


900 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


intellectual power of those whom they had subdued. 
It was natural to connect this intellectual su- 
periority with the religion ; and while every- 
thing else, the civil power, the ordinary course of 
affairs, as well as the army, bowed before them, the 
religion alone stood up, resolute, unyielding, almost un- 
disturbed. The Christian bishops and clergy (like the 
aged senators of old, as they are described in the noble 
passage of Livy, awaiting their doom in the Capitol, 
and appalling for a time the ruthless Gaul by the ven- 
erable majesty of their dress and demeanor) might 
seem to awe their conquerors into respect; and though 
at times, when the paroxysm of wonder was broken, as 
in the former instance, the conquerors might insult or 
even massacre the objects of their adoration, still in 
general the sacred character would work on the super- 
stitious mind of the barbarian. The Teuton had 
already the habit of contemplating the priest as the 
representative of divinity. According to the general 
feeling of polytheism, acknowledging the gods of other 
tribes or nations, as well as his own, to possess divine 
power, he arrayed the priesthood of the stranger in the 
same fearfulness; the mysterious sanctity which dwelt 
with the Christian’s God hallowed the Christian bishop. 

Nor, though individual priests might and did accom- 
No Teutonic Pany the migratory tribes, does there appear 
Priesthood. any of that strong sacerdotal spirit which be- 
longs to an organized hierarchy, by which its influence 
is chiefly maintained and established, which is pledged 
to and supported by mutual emulation, and by fear of 
the reproach of treason to the common cause, or of 
base abandonment of the wealth, the power, and the 
credit of the fraternity. With these elements then of 


Respect for 
the clergy. 


Car. IL. EFFECT ON CHRISTIANS. 367 


faith within his heart, the German was migrating into 
the territory as it were of a new God, and was encoun- 
tered everywhere by the priest of that God. That 
priest was usually full of zeal, and, with all to 
whom his language was intelligible, of eloquence ; con- 
fessedly in all intellectual qualities a superior being, 
and asserting himself to be divinely commissioned to 
impart the truth ; seizing every opportunity of vicissi- 
tude, of distress, of sickness, of afHiction, to enforce 
the power and goodness of his God; himself perhaps 
in perfect faith turning every one of those countless 
incidents, which to a barbarian mind was capable of a 
supernatural tinge, into a manifest miracle; opening a 
new and more distinct and terrible hell and a heaven 
of light and gladness, and declaring himself to possess 
the keys of both. 

At no time, under no circumstances, would Chris- 
tianity appear more sincere, more devout, pict on 
more commanding, or more amiable. As Chm stians. 
has always been observed during a plague, an earth- 
quake, or any other great public calamity, men _be- 
come either more recklessly godless, or more profoundly 
religious ; so during the centuries of danger, disaster 
and degradation, which were those of barbarian inva- 
sion and conquest, the fire must, as it were, have been 
trying the spirits of men. Those who had no vital or 
rooted religion would fall off, as some of them would 
assert, from a God who showed them no protection. 
These while free would waste away the few remaming 
years or days of their wealth, or at all events of their 
freedom, in licentiousness and luxury ; if slaves, they 
would sink to all the vices, as well as the degradation 
of slavery. The truly religious, on the other hand, 


368 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IU. 


would clasp more nearly to their heart the one remain- 
ing principle of consolation and of dignity. They 
would fly from a world which only offered shame and 
misery, to the hope of a better and more happy state 
of being. Death was their only release, but beyond 
death, they were secure, they were at peace ; they 
would take refuge, at least in faith, from the face of a 
tyrannical master, or what to a freeborn Roman was 
as galling and humiliating, a lord and proprietor, in the 
presence of the Redeemer. They would flee from 
down-trodden servitude on earth to glory and beatitude 
in heaven. The darker the calamity, the more entire 
the resignation ; as wretchedness would be more ram- 
pant, so devotion would be more devout. The Provin- 
cial with his home desolated, his estate seized, his fam- 
ily outraged or massacred or carried away into bondage, 
would, if really Christian, consider himself as taking 
up his cross; he would be a more fervent, as it were, a 
desperate believer. In the letters of Sidonius Apolli- 
naris, we find the Bishop of Clermont writing to Ma- 
ternus, the Bishop of Vienne, for the form of certain 
litanies or rogations, which were used in that city dur- 
ing an ‘earthquake and conflagration; he proposes to 
institute the same solemn ceremonies in apprehension 
of the invasion of the Goths into Provence. Salvian 
bitterly reproaches the Roman Gauls with their passion 
for theatric games, which they indulged during such 
days of peril and disaster only with more desperate in- 
tensity. But, even if the true Christians in those 
hours of trial were fewer in number, it cannot be 
doubted that their piety took a more vehement and im- 
passioned character. It was the time for great Chris- 
tian virtues, as well as for more profound Christian con- 


Cuap. II. EFFECT ON CHRISTIANS. 369 


solations, virtues which in some points would be strik- 
ingly congenial to barbaric minds, as giving a sublime 
patience and serenity in suffering, a calm contempt of 
death. The Germans would admire the martyr whom 
in their wantonness they slew, if that martyr showed 
true Christian tranquillity in his agony. There was no 
danger which the better bishops and clergy would not 
encounter for their flocks ; they would venture to con- 
front unarmed the fierce warrior; all the treasures of 
the unplundered churches were willingly surrendered 
for the redemption of captives. The austerities prac- 
tised by some of the clergy, and by those who had 
commenced the monastic life, would arrest the atten- 
tion and inthral the admiration of barbarians, to whom 
self-command, endurance, strength of will, would ap- 
pear kindred and noble qualities. In the early period, 
when the Germans still dwelt separate in their camps, 
or in the ceded settlements within the frontier, the cap- 
tives would be, and as history shows, were the chief 
missionaries. The barbarians on the one hand would 
more and more feel the intellectual superiority of their 
bond-slaves, which would induce them to look favor- 
ably on their religion. The captives, some of them 
bishops, some females of high rank and _ influential 
beauty, where they were truly Christians, would be 
urged by many of the purest, and many less holy mo- 
tives, to convert their masters. The sacred duty of 
disseminating the Gospel, the principle of love which 
would impart its blessings to all mankind; the strong 
conviction that they were rescuing the barbarians from 
eternal damnation, the doom of all but the true believ- 
ers in Christ ; and so in the noblest form the returning 


good for evil, would conspire with the pride and con- 
VOL. I. 24 


370 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


solation of ruling their rulers; of maintaining in one 
sense the Roman supremacy over the minds of men. 
The end would sanctify all arts, dignify all humilia- 
tions ; Christian zeal and worldly ambition would act 
together in perfect harmony. 

Where the Teutonic nations had penetrated more 
Teutonsin ito the midst of the Roman Empire; where 
the midst they had settled down, as they did succes- 
Re sively, in all the provinces, as lords of the 
soil, they would be more fully in the presence and con- 
centred influence of Christianity. Themselves with- 
out temples, without shrines, without altars, perhaps 
without a priesthood, they would be daily spectators of 
the lofty and spacious edifices, perhaps the imposing 
processions, the ceremonial, which had already begun 
to assume some grandeur, of the Christian churches. 
If admitted, or forcing their way within, or hearing 
from without the hymns and the music, the ordinary 
ceremonial which they would witness, and still more 
perhaps the more solemn mysteries which were jeal- 
ously shrouded from their sight, would lay ‘hold upon 
their unpreoccupied religiousness, and offer them as 
almost ready captives to the persuasive teacher of these 
new and majestic truths. Their conversion therefore 
was more speedy, and comparatively more complete. 
They too contributed much to establish that imposing, 
but certainly degenerate form of warlike and sacerdo- 
tal Christianity, which had been growing up for two or 
three centuries. No doubt they retained and infused 
into the Christianity of the conquered provinces many 
of their old native superstitions and modes of religious 
thought and feeling, but far less than survived in Ger- 
many itself. There the nature-worship lingered be- 


Cuap. II. CONVERSION OF TEUTONS. 511 


hind in the bosom of Christianity ; and under the sub- 
lime Monotheism of Christianity, as the old benefi-- 
cent or malignant deities of paganism, became angels 
or spirits of evil. Everywhere among the converted 
tribes, the groves, the fountains, the holy animals, pre- 
served their sanctity. As we accompany the missiona- 
ries in their spiritual campaigns we shall encounter 
many curious circumstances, which will appear more 
striking when in their proper position, than brought to- 
gether and crowded in one general view. The char- 
acter of the Christianity which grew up out of these 
discordant elements will be best discerned in the prog- 
ress of its growth.1 

About the year 300 Christianity had found its way 
among the Goths and some of the German gyccossive 
tribes on the Rhine. The Visigoths first cement, 
embraced the Gospel, as a nation; they were τὴν 
followed by the Ostrogoths ; with these the Vandals 
and the Gepidz were converted during the fourth cen- 
tury. At the close of the fifth century the Franks 
were converted, and at the beginning of the sixth, first 
the Alemanni, then the Lombards; the Bavarians in 
the seventh and eighth, the Frisians, Hessians, and 
Thuringians in the eighth; the Saxons by the sword 
of Charlemagne in the ninth. Our present inquiry 
limits itself to the conversions within the pale of the 
Roman Empire, and closes with that of the Franks. 
With the exception of the latter, the whole of these 
nations were the conquests of Arian Christi- 4yianism of 
anity, or embraced it during the early period *™*°"ve: 


1 The description of the Holstenians by Helmold (i. 47) will apply more 
or less to most of the early German converts: “Nihil de religione nisi no- 
men tantum Christianitatis habetis . . . nam lucorum et fontium catera- 
rumque superstitionum multiplex error apud vos habetur.”’ 


372 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox ΠῚ 


of their belief. That diversity of religious creed which 
perplexed the more mature Christian, especially the dis- 
putatious Greek and imaginative Asiatic, touched not 
these simple believers. The Arian Goth had submis- 
sively received the lessons of his first teacher, and with 
some tribes the difference was so little felt, that he did 
not persecute on account of it. Nations changed their 
belief with but slight reluctance. The Burgundians 
in Gaul were first Catholic, then Arian under the Vis- 
igothic rule, Catholic again with the Franks. The 
Suevians in Spain were first Catholic, then fell off into 
Arianism : it was not till the sixth century that Spain 
was Catholic. For soon, indeed, religious difference 
became a pretext for cruelty and ambition, made the 
Vandal in Africa a persecutor as well as a tyrant, and 
became the battle-word of the Frank when he would 
invade the dominions of the Burgundian or the Visi- 
goth, or when he descended into Italy to protect the 
orthodox Bishop of Rome against the heterodox Lom- 
bard. 

But of these ,early Arian missionaries, the Arian 
Uiphilas. records, if they ever existed, have almost en- 
tirely perished. The Church was either ignorant of or 
disdained to preserve their memory. Ulphilas alone, 
the apostle of the Goths, has, as it were, forced his way 
into the Catholic records, in which, as in the frag- 
ments of his great work, his translation of the Script- 
ures into the Mceso-Gothic language, this admirable 
man has descended to posterity.!_ Ulphilas was a Goth 

1 The orthodox abbreviator of Philostorgius acknowledges, but carefully 
suppresses, the praises which Philostorgius had lavished on Ulphilas. We 
would almost have forgiven him the suppression of the praise, if he had 


imparted the more extensive information which Philostorgius seems to have 
preserved of this great event. 


Cuap. IL. ULPHILAS. 373 


by birth, not by descent. His ancestors, during a 
predatory expedition of the Goths into Asia, under the 
reign of Gallienus, had been swept away with many 
other captives, some belonging to the clergy, from a 
village in Cappadocia, to the Gothic settlements north 
of the Danube. These captives, faithful to their 
creed, perpetuated and propagated among their masters 
the doctrines of Christianity. Ulphilas first appears as 
the Bishop of the Goths, and as their ambassador at 
the Court of Valens.? His religion, and his descent 
from a Roman provincial family, as well as high influ- 
ence, might designate him for this mission to the Ro- 
man Emperor of the East.2 The Goths beyond the 
Danube, pressed by the more powerful and ferocious 
Huns, requested permission to cross the Danube, and 
settle in Meesia, within the Roman frontier. Among 
the motives which induced the Emperor to consent, 
and to accept this nation of hardy but dangerous sub- 
jects, was their, at least partial, conversion to Christian- 

1 The name of Eutyches, called by St. Basil, the Blessed, has survived, 
as having, from the same region, Cappadocia, established a church among 
the Scythians, (the Sarmatians,) who had been subdued, and were mingled 
with the Goths. St. Cyril asserts that the Scythians had no cause to envy 
the empire; they had their bishops, priests, deacons, sacred virgins. — Cyril 
Hierosolyim. Catech. xvi. ᾿ 

2 Basil, Epist. 16, tome iii. 

8 It is said that the Gothic bishop, like his predecessor Theophilus, re- 
ported to have been present at the Council of Nicea (Socrates, ii. 41), had 
professed that creed; that he was threatened, bribed, persuaded by Valens 
to accede to his Arianism, and acquiesced in it as a mere verbal dispute. 
Οὐκ εἷναι δογμάτων ἔφη διαφορὰν, ἀλλὰ ματαίαν ἔριν ἐργάσασϑαι τὴν διά- 
στασιν. ---- Theodoret, iv. 87. But see the very curious character and creed 
of Ulphilas, in the speech of his disciple Bishop Auxentius at the Council 
of Aquileia (A.D. 381), reported by Bishop Maximinus. This remarkable 
fragment was edited by Dr. Waitz from a MS. in Paris. Uber das Leben 
und die Lehre des Ulfila, von George Waitz. Hanover, 1840. Also the 


Preface to the new and excellent Edition of the Bible of Ulfilas, by the 
very learned H. F. Massmann. Stutgard, 1856. 


θ14 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


ity. Ulphilas was called by the grateful Christian 
Goths, who might now pasture their herds in the rich 
plains of Thrace, the Moses, who had led them into 
Migration = land of promise! But the disciples of 
aaa ae philas formed but a small part of the 
Panube. —_- vast migration, which, partly under permis- 
sion, partly by bribery of: the Imperial officers, partly 
by stealth, and partly by force, came swarming over 
the river, and took possession of the unprotected Ro- 
man province. The heathen part of the population 
brought over their own priests and priestesses, with 
their altars and rites ; but on those mysterious rites they 
maintained an impenetrable silence; they disguised 
their priests in the garb and manners of Christian bishops. 
They had even fictitious monks clothed in black, and 
demeaning themselves as Christian ascetics.? Thus, 
relates the heathen historian, who makes this curious 
statement, while they faithfully but secretly adhered to 
their own religion, the Romans were weak enough to 
suppose them perfect Christians. But once on the Ro- 
man side of the Danube, the more martial Goths 
spurned the religion which they had condescended to 


1 Philostorg. ii. 5. Auxentius (apud Waitz, p. 20) uses the same com- 
parison to Moses and the Red Sea (the Danube), and adds, “‘ eo populo in solo 
Romaniz ubi sine illis septem annis triginta et tribus annis veritatem prae- 
dicavit, &c.”” —and so makes up the forty years of Moses. 

2 This remarkable passage of Eunapius is one of the most important his- 
torical fragments discovered in the Palimpsest MSS. by Monsignor Mai. 
It was of course unknown to the older historians, including Gibbon. — 
Mai, p. 277. In the reprint of the Byzantines (Bonn, 1829, edit. Niebuhr), 
p- 82. Eunapius speaks of the false bishops having much of the fox. The 
hatred of Eunapius to the monks breaks out in his description of these im- 
postors. ‘The mimicry of the monks was not difficult; it was enough to 
sweep the ground with black robes and tunics, to be good for nothing and 
believed in.” Οὐδὲν ἐχούσης τὴς μιμῆσεως πραγματῶδες καὶ δύσκολον, ἀλ- 
λὰ ἐξήρκει φαιὰ ἱμάτια σύρουσι καὶ χιτώνια, πονηροῖς τε εἴναι καὶ πιστεύεσϑαι. 


(ΠΑΡ. II. STRIFE AMONG THE GOTHS. 375 


feign with barbarian cunning. Ulphilas, as ἃ true 
missionary of the Prince of Peace, aspired not merely 
to convert his disciples to Christianity, but to peaceful 
habits. In his translation of the Scriptures he left out 
the Books of Kings, as too congenial and too stimula- 
tive to their warlike propensities.2. The Goths divided 
into two factions, each with its great hereditary chief- 
tain: of the one, the valiant Athanaric; of suite among 
the other Fritigern, the friend of Ulphilas. te ¢%s- 

The warlike and anti-Christian party appealed to their 
native Gods, and raised a violent persecution. The 
God of their fathers was placed on a lofty wagon, and 
drawn through the whole camp; all who refused their 
adoration were burned, with their whole families, in 
their tents. A multitude, especially of helpless women 
and children, who took refuge in their rude church, 
were likewise mercilessly burned with their sacred edi- 
fice. But while in their two great divisions, the Os- 
trogoths and Visigoths, the nation, gathering its de- 
scendants from all quarters, spread their more or less 
rapid conquests over Gaul, Italy, and Spain, Ulphilas 
formed a peaceful and populous colony of shepherds 
and herdsmen on the pastures below Mount Heemus.® 


1 Are we to attribute Jerome’s triumphant exclamations to these events? 
Probably not altogether. ‘“Getarum rutilus et flavus exercitus, Ecclesia- 
rum circumfert tentoria.”—Ad Let. “Stridorem suum in dulce crucis 
fregerunt melos.’’ — Ad Heliod. ‘ Hunni discunt Psalterium.’’ — Ad Leet. 

2 Philostorgius, loc. cit. 

8 These persecutions are by some placed before the migration over the 
Danube. I think the balance of probability favors the view in the text. 

4 Sozomen, iv. 87. Compare the legend of St. Saba. apud Bolland, April 
12—remembering that it is a legend. 

5“ Gothi minores, populus immensus cum suo Pontifice ipsoque Primate 
Wulfila . . . ad pedes montis. Gens multa sedit, pauper et imbellis, nisi 
armento, diversi generis pecorum et pascuis, silvaque lignorum, parim 
aabens tritici.” — Jornandes, c. lii. 


376 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boon ΠΙ. 


He became the Primate of a simple Christian nation. 
For them he formed an alphabet of twenty-four letters, 
and completed (all but the fierce Books of Kings) his 
translation of the Scriptures. Thus the first Teutonic 
Christians received the gift of the Bible, in their own 
language, from the Apostle of their race.1 

No record whatever, not even a legend remains, of 
the manner in which the two great branches of the 
History of Gothic race, the Visigoths in France, the 
aakchowny Ostrogoths in Pannonia, and the Suevians 
in Spain, the Gepide, the Vandals, the mingled hosts 
which formed the army of Odoacer, the first king of 
Italy, and at length the fierce Lombards, were con- 
verted to Christianity.” They no doubt yielded — but 
secretly and imperceptibly — to those influences de- 
scribed above; the faith appears to steal from nation to 
nation, and wins king after king; and it is only when 
they become sovereigns of great independent kingdoms, 
conquerors like Alaric, founders of dynasties like The- 
odoric in Italy and the Visigothic and Suevian mon- 
archs in France and Spain, or raise fierce persecutions, 
like the Vandals in Africa against the Catholics, that 
we recognize them as professed Christians, and Chris- 
tians holding a peculiar form of faith.? 

Of the Burgundians alone, and the motives of their 


1 It is difficult to discriminate between the rhetoric and the facts recorded 
by Jerome. If we are to take his words in their plain sense, theologic 
studies were far advanced among the Goths: “ Quis hoc crederet ut bar- 
bara Getarum lingua Hebraicam quereret veritatem? et dormitantibus 
imo contendentibus Grecis, ipsa Germania Spiritus Sancti eloquia scrutare- 
tur.’’ — Epist. ad Juniam et Fretilam, tom. ii. p. 626. 

2 Tdacius (Chron. 448) says the Suevians were first Catholic; if so, they 
were converted to Arianism by the Goths. 

8 Compare a modern book of research and judgment, and on the whole, 
of candor, L’Arianisme des Peuples Germaniques, par Ch. J. Reveillot. 
Paris: Besancon, 1850. 


Cnar. I. GOTHS ALL ARIANS. ott 


conversion, remains a curious detail in one of ἘΠ ΕΣ 
the Byzantine ecclesiastical historians. The PUe"4ans. 
Burgundians occupied at that time the left bank of the 
Rhone, had acquired peaceful habits, and employed 
themselves in some kind of manufacture.! The ter- 
rible invasion of the Huns broke in upon their quiet 
industry. Despairing of the aid of man, they looked 
round for some protecting Deity; the God of the Ro- 
mans appeared the mightiest, as worshipped by the 
most powerful people. They set off to a neighboring 
city of Gaul, requested, and after some previous fasting, 
received baptism from the bishop. Their confidence in 
their new tutelar Deity gave them courage, they dis- 
comfited with a small body of troops, about 3000, a 
vast body of the Huns, who lost 10,000 men. From 
that time the Burgundians embraced Christianity, in 
the words of the historian, with fiery zeal.? 

But all these nations were converts to the Arian 
form of Christianity, except perhaps the Bur- au arians. 
gundians,? who under the Visigoths fell off to Arianism. 
Ulphilas himself was a semi-Arian, and acceded to the 
creed of Rimini. Hence the total silence of the 
Catholic historians, who perhaps destroyed, or dis- 
dained to preserve the fame of Arian conquests to the 
common Christianity. The first conversion of a Teu- 
tonic nation to the faith, of which any long and par- 


1 Socrates, Ece. Hist. vii. 30. Odroe βίον ἀπράγμονα ζῶσιν del, τέκτονες 
yap σχεδὸν πάντες εἰσιν. Of what were they artisans? This was during 
the reign of Theodosius II., A.p. 408-449. 

2 Τὸ ἔϑνος διαπύρως ἐχριστιάνισεν, loc. cit. 

8. Orosius, vii. 22. 

4 Salvian is absolutely charitable to the errors of the German Arians: 
“Heeretici ergo sunt, sed non scientes. Errant ergo, sed bono animo errant, 
non odio sed affectu Dei.” But this is to contrast them with the vices of 
he orthodox. — De Gubern. Dei. 


378 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


ticular account survives, was that of the Franks, and 
that by Catholic prelates into stern proselytes to the 
Catholic faith.! 

This conversion of the Franks was the most impor- 
Conversion tant event in its remote as well as its immediate 
of Franks. — consequences in European history. It had great 
influence on the formation of the Frankish monarchy. 
The adoption of the Catholic form of faith, by arraying 
on the side of the Franks all the Catholic prelates and 
their followers, led to their preponderance over the 
Visigothic and Burgundian kings, to their descent into 
Italy under Pepin and his son, and to their intimate 
connection with the Papal see; and thus paved the 
way for the Western Empire of Charlemagne. They 
were the chosen champions of Catholicism, and Ca- 
tholicism amply repaid them by vindicating all their 
aggressions upon the neighboring kingdoms, and aid- 
ing in every way the consolidation of their formidable 
power. The Franks, the most barbarous of the Teu- 
tonic tribes (though in cruelty they seem to have been 
surpassed by the Vandals), had settled in a Christian 
country, already illustrious in legendary annals for the 
wonders of Saints, as of Martin of Tours, the founda- 
tion of monasteries, and the virtues of Bishops like 
Remigius, who gave his name to the great cathedral 
city of Rheims. The south of France was ruled by 
Arian sovereigns. Clovis was a pagan, then only the 
chief of about 4000 Frankish warriors, but full of 
adventurous daring and unmeasured ambition. His 
conversion, if it had not issued in events of such pro- 


1 Gregory of Tours is the great authority for this period: he wrote for 
those “ qui appropinquante mundi fine desperant.”’” —In Prolog. See Loebel, 
Gregor von Tours; Ampére, Hist. Lit. de la France. 


Cap. IL. CLOVIS. 379 


found importance to mankind, might havg seemed but 
a trivial and fortuitous occurrence. The influence of 
a female conspires with the conviction that the Chris- 
tians’ God is the stronger God of battle ; such are the 
impulses which seem to bring this bold yet crafty bar- 
barian, who no doubt saw his advantage in his change 
of belief, to the foot of the Cross, and made him a 
strenuous assertor of orthodox faith. Clovis had ob- 
tained in marriage the niece of Gundebald, king of the 
Burgundians. The early life of this Princess was 
passed amid the massacre of her parents and kindred ; 
it shows how little Christianity had allayed the ferocity 
of these barbarians. 

Gundicar, king of the Burgundians, left four sons. 
The fate of the family was more like that of gunaicar the 
a polygamous Eastern prince, where the sons ™8"™422- 
of different mothers, bred up without brotherly inter- 
course in the seraglio, own no proximity of blood. 
Gundebald, the elder son, first slew his brother Chilperic, 
tied a stone round the neck of Chilperic’s wife, and 
cast her into the Rhone, beheaded his two sons and 
threw their bodies into a well. The daughters, of 
whom Clotilda was one, he preserved alive. Godemar, 
his next brother, he besieged in his castle, set it on fire, 
and burned him alive. Godesil, the third brother, as 
will be related δὲ a subsequent period, shared the same 
fate. Gundebald, as yet only a double fratricide, either 
felt, or thought it right to appear to feel, deep remorse 
for his crimes. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, saw or imag- 
ined some inclination in the repentant king to embrace 
Catholicism. In far different language from that 
spoken by Ambrose to the Emperor Theodosius, the 
Bishop addressed the bloody monarch, — “ You weep 


380 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox ΠῚ 


with inexpressible grief at the death of your brothers, 
your sympathizing people are afflicted by your sadness. 
But by the secret counsels of God, this sorrow shall 
turn to joy; no doubt this diminution in the number 
of its princes was intended for the welfare of the king- 
dom, those alone were allowed to survive who are 
needed for the administration of the kingdom.” ! 

Gundebald, however, resisted these flattering argu- 
ments, and remained obstinately Arian ; but Clotilda, 
his niece, it is unknown through what influence, was 
educated in orthodoxy. Clotilda took the opportunity, 
when the heart of her husband Clovis might be softened 
by the birth of her first-born son, to endeavor to wean 
him from his idolatry. Clovis listened with careless 
indifference ; yet with the same indifference common in 
the Teutonic tribes, permitted the baptism of the infant. 
But the child died, and Clovis saw in his death the 
resentment of his offended Gods; he took but little 
comfort from the assurance of the submissive mother, 
that her son, having been baptized, was in the presence 
of God. Yet with the same strange versatility of feel- 
ing, he allowed his second son also to be baptized. This 
child too declined, and Clovis began to renew his 
reproaches; but the prayer of the amother was heard, 
and the child restored to health.? 

It was not, however, in this gentler character that 
the Frank would own the power of the Christians’ 
Clovis. God. The Franks and the Alemanni met in 
battle at Tolbiac, not far from Cologne. The Franks 


1 Alcimi Aviti Epist. apud Sirmond. oper. vol. ii. 

2 According to Gregory of Tours, she argued with her husband against 
the worship of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury. Was it ignorance 
or did Gregory suppose that he was writing like a Roman? — Gregor 
Turon. ii. 


Crap. II. CLOVIS. 381 


were worstéd, when Clovis bethought him of Clotilda’s 
God. He cast off his own inefficient divinities; he 
prayed to Christ, and made a solemn vow, that if he 
were succored, he would be baptized as a Christian. 
The tide of battle turned; the king of the Alemanni 
was slain; and the Alemanni, in danger of total de- 
struction, hailed Clovis as their sovereign.1 

Clotilda, without loss of time, sent the glad tidings 
to Remigius, Bishop of the city, which afterwards took 
his name. Clovis still hesitated, till he could consult 
his people. The obsequious warriors declared their 
readiness to be of the same religion as their king. To 
impress the minds of the barbarians the baptismal 
ceremony was performed with the utmost pomp; the 
church was hung with embroidered tapestry and white 
curtains ; odors of incense like airs of Paradise were 
diffused around; the building blazed with countless 
lights. When the new Constantine knelt in the font 
to be cleansed from the leprosy of his heathenism, 
“ Fierce Sicambrian,” said the Bishop, ‘ bow thy 
neck: burn what thou hast adored, adore what thou 
hast burned!” Three thousand Franks followed the 
example of Clovis. During one of their subsequent 
religious conferences, the Bishop dwelt on the barbar- 
ity of the Jews in the death of the Lord. Clovis 
was moved, but not to tenderness, —‘+ Had «-». 496. 
I and my faithful Franks been there, they had not 
dared to do it.” 

At that time Clovis the Frank was the only 
orthodox sovereign in Christendom. The Emperor 


1 “Tnvocavi enim Deos meos, sed, ut experior, elongati sunt ab auxilio 
meo, unde credo eos nullius esse potestatis preditos, qui 5101 obedientibus 
non succurrunt. Te nune inyoco, et tibi credens desidero, tantum ut eruar 
ab adversariis meis.”” — Greg. Turon. ii. 80. 


382 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


Clovis the Anastasius lay at least under the suspicion 
only orthodox . Β τ 
sovereign. Of favoring the Eutychian heresy. The 
Ostrogoth Theodoric in Italy, the Visigothic! and 
Burgundian kings in France, the Suevian in Spain, 
the Vandal in Africa were Arians. If unscrupulous 
ambition, undaunted valor and enterprise, and deso- 
lating warfare, had been legitimate means for the 
propagation of pure Christianity, it could not have 
found a better champion than Clovis. For the first 
time the diffusion of belief in the nature of the God- 
head became the avowed pretext for the invasion of a 
neighboring territory.2_ Already the famous Avitus, 
Bishop of Vienne, has addressed a letter to Clovis, in 
which he augurs from the faith of Clovis the victory 
of the Catholic faith; even the heterodox Byzantine 
emperor is to tremble on his throne; Catholic Greece 
to exult at the dawning of this new light in the West. 
The wars of Clovis with Burgundy were all but openly 
declared wars of religion; the orthodox clergy hardly 
condescended to disguise their inclination to the Franks, 
whom they supported with their prayers, if not with 
more substantial assistance. Before the war broke out, 

1 Euric, the greatest of the Visigothic kings, was now dead; he had left 
but feeble successors. Euric labored under the evil fame of a persecutor; 
he had attempted what Theodoric aspired to effect in Italy, but with far less 
success, the fusion of the two races — the Roman and Teutonic; but that 
of which Sidonius so bitterly complains, of so many sees vacant by the 
intolerance of Euric, the want of bishops and clergy to perpetuate the 
Catholic succession, ruined churches, and grass-grown altars, reads as too 
eloquent. Reveillot admits that the views of Euric were political rather 
than religious (p. 141). 

2 The rebellion of Vitalianus in the East was a few years later. 

8 The barbarous Clovis must have heard, it must not be said, read, still 
less, considering the obscure style of the prelate, understood, the somewhat 
gross and lavish flattery of his faith, his humility, even his mercy, to which 


the saintly Bishop scrupled not to condescend: “ Vestra fides nostra victoria 
est. . . . Gaudeat ergo quidem Grecia se habere principem legis nostre. 


Crap. II. CLOVIS. 383 


a synod of the orthodox Bishops met, it is said, under 
the advice of Remigius, at Lyons. With Avitus at 
their head, they visited King Gundebald, and proposed 
a conference with the Arian bishops, whom they were 
prepared to prove from the Scripture to be in error. 
The king shrewdly replied, —‘“ If yours be the true 
doctrine, why do you not prevent the King of the 
Franks from waging an unjust war against me, and 
from caballing with my enemies against me?? There is 
no true Christian faith where there is rapacious covet- 
ousness for the possessions of others, and thirst for 
blood. Let him show forth his faith by his good works.” 
Avitus skilfully eluded this question, and significantly 
replied, that he was ignorant of the motives of Clovis, 
* but this I know, that God overthrows the thrones of 
those who are disobedient to his law.”® When after 
the submission of the Burgundian kingdom to the pay- 
ment of tribute to the Franks, Gundebald resumed the 
sway, his first act was to besiege his brother Godesil, 
the ally of Clovis, in Vienne. Godesil fled to the Arian 
church, and was slain there with the Arian Bishop.* 


Numquid fidem perfecto predicabimus quam ante perfectionem sine pre- 
dicatore vidistis ? an forte humilitatem .. . an misericordiam quam solutus 
a vobis adhuc nuper populus captivus gaudiis mundo insinuat lacrymis 
Deo?” The mercy of Clovis! — Avitus, Epist. xli. 

1 It is remarkable that all the distinguished and influential of the clergy 
appear on the Catholic side. The Arians are unknown even by name. It 
is true that we have only Catholic annalists. But I have little doubt that 
the Arian prelates were for the most part barbarians, inferior in education 
and in that authority which still, in peaceful functions, attached to the Ro- 
man name. It was Rome now enlisting a new clan of barbarians in her 
own cause, and under her own guidance, against her foreign oppressors. 

2 The Bishop Avitus of Vienne was in correspondence with the insurgent 
Vitalianus in the court of the Emperor Anastasius. So completely were 
now all wars and rebellions religious wars. 

8 Collatio Episcop. apud D’Achery, Spicileg. iii. p. 304. 

4 M. Reveillot has very ingeniously, perhaps too ingeniously, worked out 


994 ᾿ LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IIL. 


On this occasion Avitus tried again to work on the 
obstinate mind of Gundebald; his arguments con- 
founded but did not persuade the king, who retained 
his errors to the end of his life. 

When, however, Clovis determined to attack the 
Religious kingdom of the Visigoths, the monkish_his- 
ead torian ascribes to him this language :— “I 
am sore troubled that these Arians still possess so large 
a part of Gaul.”! Before he set out on his campaign 
the King of the Franks went to perform his devotions 
before the shrine of St. Martin at Tours. As he 
entered the church he heard the words of the Psalm 
which they were chanting, —‘‘ Thou hast girded me, 
O Lord, with strength unto the battle ; thou hast sub- 
dued unto me those which rose up against me. Thou 
hast given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might 
destroy them that hate me.”? The oracular words 
were piously fulfilled by Clovis. The Visigothic king- 
dom was wasted and subdued by the remorseless sword 
of the Frank. These are not the only illustrations of 
the Christianity practised by Clovis, and related in 


the religious history of the reign of King Gundebald (p. 189 et seq.). But 
he is somewhat tender to the Bishop, who “ almost praises Gundebald for 
the murder of his brothers.’’ The passage is too characteristic to be 
omitted: ‘‘Flebatis quondam pietate ineffabili funera germanorum (he 
had murdered them), sequebatur fletum publicum universitatis afHictio, 
et occulto divinitatis intuitu, instrumenta meestitie parabantur ad gaudium 
. . . . Minuebat regni felicitas numerum regalium personarum et hoc solum 
servabatur mundo, quod sufticeret imperio (the good Turkish maxim). 
Illic repositum est quicquid prosperum fuit catholice veritati.’’ This is 
said of an Arian, but the father of an orthodox son, Sigismund, converted 
by Avitus. — Epist. v. p. 95. 

1 Valde molesté fero, quod hi Ariani partem Galliarum tenent. Eamus 
cum Dei adjutorio, et superatis eis terram redigamus in ditionem nostram. 
— Greg. Tur. ii. 37. 

2 Psalm xviii. 89. Did Clovis understand Latin? or did the orthodox 
clergy of Tours interpret the flattering prophecy ? 


Crap. II. CLOVIS. 385 


perfect simplicity by his monkish historian.! Gregory 
of Tours describes without emotion one of the worst 
acts which darken the reign of Clovis. He suggested 
to the son of Sigebert, King of the Ripuarian Franks, 
the assassination of his father, with the promise that 
the murderer should be peaceably established on the 
throne. The murder was committed in the neighboring 
forest. The parricide was then slain by the command 
of Clovis, who in a full parliament of the nation 
solemnly protested that he had no share in the murder 
of either; and was raised by general acclamation on a 
shield, as King of the Ripuarian Franks. Gregory 
concludes with this pious observation: —‘“ For God 
thus daily prostrated his enemies under his hands, and 
enlarged his kingdom, because he walked before him 
with an upright heart, and did that which ,,,..,, 5. 

was pleasing in his sight.”? Yet Gregory 5% 


1 Miracles accompany his bloody arms; a hind shows a ford; a light 
from the church of St. Hilary in Poitiers summons him to hasten his attack 
before the arrival of the Italian troops of Theodoric in the camp of the 
Visigoth. The walls of Angouléme fall of their own accord. Gregory 
Tur. ii. 87. According to the life of St. Remi, Clovis massacred all the 
Arian Goths in the city. —Ap. Bouquet, iii. p. 379. St. Cesarius, the 
Bishop of Arles, when that city was besieged by Clovis and the Burgun- 
dians, was suspected of assisting the invader by more than his prayers. 
He was imprisoned, his biographers assert, his innocence proved. — Vit. S. 
Cesar. in Mabill. Ann. Benedic. see. i. 

2 Greg. Turon. ii. 42. “Prosternebat enim quotidie Deus hostes ejus 
sub manu ipsius et augebat regnum ejus, e0 quod ambulavit recté corde 
omnino, et fecerit que placita erant in oculis ejus.’’ There follows a long 
list of assassinations and acts of the darkest treachery. ‘ Clovis fit périr 
tous les petits rois des Francs par une suite de perfidies.’’ — Michelet, H. 
de France, i. 209. The note recounts the assassinations. Throughout, the 
triumph of Clovis is the triumph of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity 
over Arianism. ‘“ Dominus enim se vere credentibus, etsi insidiante ini- 
mico aliqua perdant, his centuplicata restituit; heretici vero nec acquirunt, 
sed quod videntur habere, aufertur. Probabat hoc Godigeseli, Gundobaldi, 
atque Godomari interitus, qui et patriam simul et animas perdiderunt.” 
Prolog. ad lib. iii. 

VOL. I. 25 


386 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


of Tours was a prelate, himself of gentle and blameless 
manners, and of profound piety. 

Throughout indeed this dark period of the contest 
Influence or between the Franks, the Visigoths, and the 
slerey, Burgundians for the dominion of France, as 
well as through the long dreary annals of the Me- 
rovingian kings, it will be necessary, as well as just, 
to estimate the character, influence, and beneficent 
workings of the clergy on the whole society. But the 
more suitable place for this inquiry will be when the 
two races, the Roman provincial and the Teutonic, are 
more completely mingled, though not fused together, 
for it was but gradually that the clergy, who never 
ceased to be Roman in the language of their services 
and of letters, ceased to be so in sentiment, and through- 
out northern France especially, in blood and descent. 
There is more even at this time of the first conversion 
of the Franks to Christianity, in the close alliance be- 
tween the Roman clergy of Gaul with the Franks, 
than the contest of Catholicism with heterodoxy. The 
Ba Arian clergy of the Visigoths were probably, 
one to a considerable extent, of Teutonic race, 
some of them, like Ulphilas, though provincials of the 
Empire by descent, of Gothic birth. Their names 
have utterly perished; this may partly (as has been 
said) be ascribed to the jealousy of the Catholic writers, 
the only annalists of the time. But the conversion of 
the Franks was wrought by the Latin clergy. The 
Franks were more a federation of armed adventurers 
than a nation migrating with their families into new 
lands ; they were at once more barbarous and more 
exclusively warlike. It would probably be long before 
they would be tempted to lay aside their arms and 


Crap. II. FRANKS AND LATINS. 387 


aspire to the peaceful ecclesiastical functions. The 
Roman Gauls might even imagine that they beheld in 
the Franks deliverers from the tyranny of their actual 
masters,! the Burgundians or Visigoths. Men im- 
patient of a galling yoke pause not to consider whether 
they are not forging for themselves another more heavy 
and oppressive. They panted after release from their 
present masters, perhaps after revenge for the loss of 
their freedom and their lands, for their degradation, 
their servitude ; and cared not to consider whether it 
would not be a change from bad masters to worse. 
Clovis, it is true, had commenced his career by the 
defeat of Syagrius, the last Roman who pretended to 
authority in Gaul, and had thus annihilated the linger- 
ing remains of the Empire; but that would be either 
pardoned by the clergy or forgotten in the fond hope 
of some improvement in their condition under the bar- 
barian sway. It was, of course, a deep aggravation 
of their degraded state that their masters were not 
only foreigners, barbarians, conquerors—they were 
Arians. The Franks, as even more barbarous, were 
more likely to submit in obedience to ecclesiastical 
dominion ; and so it appears that almost throughout 
the reign of the Merovingian dynasty the two races 
held their separate functions—the Franks as kings, 
the Latins as churchmen. The weak prince who was 
deposed from his throne, or the timid one who felt 
himself unequal to its weight, was degraded, accord- 
ing to the Frankish notion, into a clerk ;? he lost his 

1 Gregory of Tours ingenuously admits ‘‘quod omnes (the Catholic clergy) 
desiderabili amore cupiverunt eos regnare.”’ 1. ii. 23. 

2 Queen Clotilda, when her two sons seized their nephews, her favorite 
grandsons (the children of Chlodomir), and gave her the choice of their 


death or tonsure, answered like a Frankish queen, ‘‘ Satius mihi est, si ad 
regnum non veniant, mortuos eos videre quam tonsos.”’ —iil. 18. 


388 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


national eminence and distinction, but disqualified by 
the tonsure from resuming his civil office, according to 
the sacerdotal notion, he was admitted to the blessed 
privilege of the priesthood ; while at the same time his 
feeble and contemptible character was a guarantee 
against his becoming a dangerous rival for the higher 
honors of the Church. Hence, on the one hand, the 
unchecked growth of the sacerdotal authority, and the 
strong Catholicity of the clergy among the Franks, 
the retention of all the higher offices, at least in the 
Church, by the Roman Provincials, till they had be- 
come of such power, wealth, and dignity, as to rouse 
the amibftion of the noble, and even of the royal 
families! Until that time the two races remained 
distinct, each in possession of his separate, uncontested 
function; and each might be actuated by high and 
noble, as well as selfish and ambitious motives. The 
honest and simple German submitted himself to the 
comparatively civilized priest of that God whom he 
now worshipped—the expounder of that mysterious 
creed before which he had bowed down in awe —the 
administrator in those imposing rites to which he was 
slowly and, as it were, jealously admitted, —the award- 
er of his eternal doom. On the other hand the clergy, 
fully possessed with the majesty of their divine mission, 
would hold it as profanation to impart its sanctity to a 
rude barbarian. Not merely would Roman pride find 


1 Τὴ the year 566 a certain Meroveus, from whose name he may be con- 
cluded to have been a Frank, appears as Bishop of Poitiers. — Greg. Turon. 
ix. 40. Compare Planck, Christliche Kirchliche Verfassung, ii. p. 96. It 
is a century later that, at the trial of Preetextatus, Archbishop of Rouen, 
are twelve prelates, six Teutons—Ragheremod, of Paris: Landowald, 
Bayeux; Remahaire, Coutances; Merowig, Poitiers; Melulf, Senlis; Ber- 
thran, Bourdeaux. Compare Thierry, Récits des Temps Mérovingiens, 
the one writer who, by his happy selection and artistic skill, has made the 
Merovingian history readable (tome ii. p. 185). 


Cuap. Il. ELEVATION OF MORAL TONE. 389 


its consolation in what thus maintained its influence 
and superiority, and look down in compassion on the 
ignorance of the Teuton — his ignorance even of the 
language of their sacred records, and of the services 
of their religion; the Romans would hold themselves 
the heaven-commissioned teachers of a race long des- 
tined to be their humble and obedient scholars. 

We return to the general view of the conversion of 
the German races. The effect of this infu- Efteets of 
sion of Teutonic blood into the whole Roman Teutons. 
system, and this establishment of a foreign dominant 
people (of kindred manners, habits and religion, though 
of various descent) in the separate provinces of the Em- 
pire which now were rising into independent kingdoms, 
upon the general Christian society, and on the Chris- 
tianity of the age, demands attentive consideration. 
Though in each ancient province, and in each recent 
kingdom, according to the genius of the conquering 
tribe, the circumstances of the conquest and settlement, 
and the state of the Roman population, many strong 
differences might exist, there were some general results 
which seem to belong to the whole social revolution. 
In one important respect the Teutonic temperament 
coincided with Christianity in raising the moral tone. 
In all that relates to sexual intercourse, the Roman so- 
ciety was corrupt to its core, and the contagion had 
spread throughout the provinces. Christianity had 
probably wrought its change rather on the few higher 
and more distinguished individuals than on the whole 
mass of worshippers. Most of these few, no doubt, 
had broken the bonds of habits and manners by a 
strong and convulsive effort, not to cultivate the purer 
charities of life, but in the aspiration after virtue, unat- 


3800 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


tainable by the many. Celibacy had many lofty minds 
and devoted hearts at its service, but it may be doubted 
whether conjugal fidelity had made equal progress. 
Christianity had secluded a certain number from the 
world and its vices; but in the world itself, now out- 
wardly Christian, it had made in this respect far less 
impression. Not that it was without power. The 
onmoraa courts of the Christian Emperors, notwith- 
pany: standing their crimes, weaknesses, and in- 
trigues, had been awed, even on the throne, to greater 
decency of manners. Neither Rome, nor Ravenna, 
nor Byzantium, had witnessed, they would not have 
endured, a Nero or an Elagabalus. The females (be- 
lieving the worst of the early life of the Empress The- 
odora) were’more disposed on the whole to the crimes 
of ambition, and political or religious intrigue, than to 
that flagrant licentiousness of the wives and mothers 
of the older Czsars. But the evil was too profoundly 
seated in the habits of the Roman world to submit to 
the control of religion — of religion embraced at first 
by so large a portion, from the example of others, from 
indifference, from force, from anything rather than 
strong personal conviction, and which had now been 
long received merely as an hereditary and traditional 
faith. The clergy themselves, as far as may be judged, 
did not stand altogether much above the general level. 
They had their heroes of continence, their spotless ex- 
amples of personal purity ; but though in general they 
might outwardly submit to the hard law of celibacy, by 
many it was openly violated, by many more secretly 
eluded ; and, as ever has been, the denial of a legiti- 
mate union led to connections more unrestricted and 
injurious to public morality. Scarcely a Provincial 


Cuap. II. GERMAN MORALS. 391 


Council but finds itself called upon to enact more strin- 
gent, and, it should seem, still ineffective prohibitions. 
Whether as a reminiscence of some older civilization, 
or as a peculiarity in their national character, German char- 
the Teutons had always paid the highest re- ποθ na 
spect to their females, a feeling which cannot exist 
without high notions of personal purity, by which it is 
generated, and in its turn tends to generate. The 
colder northern climate may have contributed to this 
result. This masculine modesty of the German char- 
acter had already excited the admiration, perhaps had 
been highly colored by the language, of Tacitus, as a 
contrast to the effeminate voluptuousness of the Ro- 
mans — marriages were held absolutely sacred, and 
producing the most perfect unity ; adulteries rare, and 
visited with public and ignominious punishment.'! The 
Christian teachers, in words not less energetic, though 
wanting the inimitable conciseness of the Roman an- 
nalist, endeavor to shame their Latin brethren by the 
severity of Teutonic morals, and to rouse them from 
their dissolute excesses by taunting them with their de-_ 
grading inferiority to barbarians, heathens, and here- 
tics. Salvian must be heard with some reserve in his 
vehement denunciation against the licentiousness of the 
fifth century. He is seeking to vindicate God’s provi- 
dential government of the world in abandoning the 
Roman and the Christian to the sway of the pagan and 
1“Ynesse quinetiam sanctum aliquid et providum putant.’’ — Germ. 
viii. ‘ Quanquam severa illic matrimonia, nec ullam morum partem magis 
laudaveris. .... Ergo septa pudicitia agunt, nullis spectaculorum illecebris, 
nullis conviviorum irritationibus corrupte .... Nemo. . . illic vitia 
ridet, nec corrumpere et corrumpi seculum videtur. . . . Sic unum acci- 
piunt maritum, quomodo unum corpus unamque yitam, ne ulla cogitatio 


ultra, ne longior cupiditas ne tanquam maritum, sed tanquam matrimo- 
nium ament.’’ — xviii. xix. 


992 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book III. 


the barbarian. ‘Among the chaste barbarians, we 
alone are unchaste: the very barbarians are shocked at 
our impurities. Among themselves they will not tol- 
erate whoredom, but allow this shameful license to the 
Romans as an inveterate usage. We cherish, they ex- 
ecrate, incontinence; we shrink from, they are enam- 
ored of purity; fornication, which with them is a 
crime and a disgrace, with us is a glory.”!} Salvian 
describes the different races, who, though in other re- 
spects varying in their character, and some more con- 
spicuous than others for these virtues, were all never- 
theless far superior to the Romans. The Goths are 
treacherous, but continent; the Alemanni less treach- 
erous, and also less continent; the Franks false, but 
hospitable ; the Saxons savagely cruel, but remarkable 
for chastity.2 The Vandals, if Salvian is to be cred- 
ited, maintained their severe virtue, not only in Spain, 
but under the burning sun and amidst the utter depray- 
ity of African morals, and in that state of felicity, lux- 
ury, and wealth which usually unmans the mind. 
They not only held in abomination the more odious 
and unnatural vices which had so deeply infected the 
habits of Greece and Rome, but all unlawful connec- 
tions with the female sex. According to the same au- 
thority, they enforced the marriage of the public pros- 


1 De Gubernat. Dei, 1. vii. p. 66. He draws the same contrast between 
the Roman inhabitants of Spain and their Vandal conquerors. 

2 “ Gothorum gens perfida sed pudica est, Alemanni impudica sed minus 
perfida, Franci mendaces sed hospitales, Saxones crudelitate efferi, sed cas- 
titate venerandi.’’ — Ibid. 

8 “Et certé ob e& tantum continentissimi ac modestissimi judicandi 
erant quos non fecisset corruptiores ipsa felicitas . . . igitur in tanta 
affluentia rerum atque lJuxurid, nullus eorum mollis effectus est .. .- 
abominati enim sunt virorum improbitates; plus adhuc addo, abominati 
etiam foeminarum; horruerunt lustra ac lupanaria, horruerunt contactus 
zoncubitusque meretricum.’’ — Ibid. 


* 


ὕπαρ. I. STRINGENCY OF GOTHIC MORAL CODE. 393 


titutes, and enacted severe laws against unchastity, thus 
compelling the Romans to be virtuous against their will. 
Under the Ostrogothic kingdom, the manners in Italy 
might seem to revert to the dignified austerity of the 
old Roman republic. Theodoric indignantly reproves a 
certain Bardilas, who had married the wife of an officer 
(from his name also of Gothic blood) while the hus- 
band was absent with the army. He speaks of it as 
bringing disgrace on the age and on the Gothic charac- 
ter.| The Ostrogothic law is silent as to incest and the 
crime against nature, as if, in its lofty purity, it did not 
imagine the existence of such offences. This code was 
for the Goths alone; the Romans were still amenable 
to their own law.?. In the laws of Theodoric the Ger- 
man abhorrence of adultery continued to make it a 
capital crime; the edict was inexorably severe against 
all crimes of this class: the seducer or ravisher of a 
free virgin was forced to marry her, and endow her 
with a fifth of his estate; if married, he forfeited a 
third of his property to his victim; if he had ne prop- 
erty, he atoned for his crime by death: if the virgin 
was a slave, the criminal, being a free man, was de- 

1 “Tn injuriam nostrorum tempdérum, adulterium simulatur, matrimonii 
lege commissum.”? The husband’s name was Patzena. It is amusing to 
hear the King of the Goths reminding unchaste women of the fidelity of 
turtledoves, who pine away in each other’s absence, and remain in strictly 
continent widowhood: “ Respicite impudice gementium turturum castis- 
simum genus, quod si a copula fuerit eam intercedente divisum, perpetua 
se abstinentiz lege constringit;’’ and this is a royal or imperial edict. 

2 Sartorius, Essai sur l’Etat des Peuples d’Italie sous le Gouvernement 
des Goths (p. 95). ‘ Odious as homicide is, it would be more odious to 
punish than to commit that crime in certain cases, as in that of open adul- 
tery. See we not that rams, bulls, and goats avenge themselves against 
their rivals? Shall man alone be unable to preserve the honor of his bed? 
Examine the cause of Candax; if he only killed the adulterers who dis- 


honored him, remit all his penalties; if he has slain innocent men, let him 
be punished.”” — Var. i. 37. 


994 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


graded into a slave of the wife of the maiden’s master, 
if he could not redeem his guilt by supplying two 
slaves; the rape of a free widow was subject to the 
capital punishment of adultery. The parents or guar- 
dians of a female who had suffered rape were bound to 
prosecute on pain of exile. 

In some provinces, it must be acknowledged, that 
the vices as well as the religion of Rome assert their 
unshaken dominion; or rather there is a terrible inter- 
change of the worst parts of each character. It is diffi- 
cult to conceive a more dark and odious state of society 
than that of France under her Merovingian kings, the 
descendants of Clovis, as described by Gregory of Tours. 
In the conflict or coalition of barbarism with Roman 
Christianity, barbarism has introduced into Christianity 
all its ferocity, with none of its generosity or magna- 
nimity ; its energy shows itself in atrocity of cruelty 
and even of sensuality. Christianity has given to bar- 
barism hardly more than its superstition and its hatred 
of heretics and unbelievers. Throughout, assassinations, 
parricides, and fratricides intermingle with adulteries and 
rapes.1 The cruelty might seem the mere inevitable re- 
sult of this violent and unnatural fusion ; but the ex- 
tent to which this cruelty spreads throughout the whole 
society almost surpasses belief. That King Chlotaire 
should burn alive his rebellious son with his wife and 
daughter is fearful enough ; but we are astounded even 
in these times with a Bishop of Tours burning a man 
alive to obtain the deeds of an estate which he coveted.? 
Fredegonde sends two murderers to assassinate Childe- 
bert, and these assassins are clerks. She causes the 


1 See a fearful summary in Loébel, Gregor von Tours, pp. 60-74. 
2 iii. 1. 


Crap. II. MEROVINGIAN LICENTIOUSNESS. 395 


Archbishop of Rouen to be murdered while he is 
chanting the service in the church; and in this 
crime a Bishop and an Archdeacon are her accom- 
plices. She is not content with open violence, she 
administers poison with the subtlety of a Locusta or 
a modern Italian, apparently with no sensual design, 
but from sheer barbarity. 

As to the intercourse of the sexes, wars of conquest, 
where the females are at the mercy of the victors, espe- 
cially if female virtue is not in much respect, yferovingian 
would severely try the more rigid morals of ἤτον 
the conqueror. The strength of the Teutonic char- 
acter, when it had once burst the bonds of habitual or 
traditionary restraint, might seem to disdain easy and 
effemniate vice, and to seek a kind of wild zest in the 
indulgence of lust, by mingling it up with all other vio- 
lent passions, rapacity, and inhumanity. Marriage was 
a bond contracted and broken on the lightest occasion. 
Some of the Merovingian kings took as many wives, 
either together or in succession, as suited either their 
passions or their politics. Christianity hardly interferes 
even to interdict incest. King Chlotaire demanded for 
the fisc the third part of the revenue of the churches ; 
some bishops yielded ; one, Injuriosus, disdainfully re- 
fused, and Chlotaire withdrew his demands. Yet 
Chlotaire, seemingly unrebuked, married two sisters 
at once. Charibert likewise married two sisters: he, 
however, found a Churchman, but that was Saint Ger- 
manus, bold enough to rebuke him. This rebuke the 
King (the historian quietly writes), as he had already 
many wives, bore with patience. Dagobert, son of 
Chlotaire, King of Austrasia, repudiated his wife Gom- 
atrude for barrenness, married a Saxon slave Mathil- 


900 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


dis, then another, Regnatrude; so that he had three 
wives at once, besides so many concubines that the 
chronicler is ashamed to recount them.! Brunehaut 
and Fredegonde are not less famous for their licen- 
tiousness than for their cruelty. Fredegonde is either 
compelled or scruples not of her own accord to take a 
public oath, with three bishops and four hundred nobles 
as her vouchers, that her son was the son of her hus- 
band Chilperic. The Eastern right of having a concu- 
bine seems to have been inveterate among the later 
Frankish kings: that which was permitted for the sake 
of perpetuating the race was continued and carried to 
excess by the more dissolute sovereigns for their own 
pleasure. Even as late as Charlemagne, the polygamy 
of that great monarch, more like an Oriental Sultan 
(except that his wives were not secluded in a harem), 
as well as the notorious licentiousness of the females of 
his court, was unchecked, and indeed unreproved, by 
the religion of which he was at least the temporal head, 
of which the Spiritual Sovereign placed on his brow 
the crown of the Western Empire. These, however, 
seem to have been the royal vices of men gradually in- 
toxicated by uncontrolled and irresponsible power, 
plunging fiercely into the indulgences before they had 
acquired any of the humanizing virtues of advanced 
civilization. 

In such times the celibacy or even the continence of 
the clergy was not likely to be very severely observed. 
The marriage of bishops, if not general, was common.? 
Firmilio had a wife named Clara. There is an ac- 


i “ Nomina concubinarum eo quod plures erant, increvit huic chronice 
inseri.’”’ — Fredegar. c. 60. 

2G. T.x.10. The son of a bishop of Verdun (vi. 35). Daughter of 
bishop (viii. 82). Compare throughout Loébel, Gregor von Tours. 


Cap. IL. MILITARY ECCLESIASTICS. 397 


count of some strange cruelties practised by a bishop’s 
wife.! 

Yet clerical incontinence was not without rebuke 
from above. Gregory tells a strange story of the pax 
with the consecrated host leaping out of a deacon’s 
hands, and flying through the air to the altar. All 
agreed that the clerk must be polluted. He confessed, 
it was said, to several acts of adultery.? 

If, however, with some exceptions, more especially 
this great exception of the Frankish monarchs, Chris- 
tianity found an unexpected ally in the higher moral 
tone of the Teutonic races, the religion in other re- 
spects and throughout its whole sphere of conquest 
suffered a serious, perhaps inevitable deterioration. 
With the world Christianity began rapidly to barbar- 
ize. War was the sole ennobling occupation. Even 
the clergy, after striving for some time to be the pacific 
mediators between the conquerors and the conquered ; 
to allay here and there the horrors of war, at times by 
the awe of their own holiness and that of their relig- 
ion; to keep the churches during the capture of a 
city as a safe sanctuary for the unarmed, the helpless, 
the women, and the children; to redeem captives from 
slavery ; to mitigate the tyranny of the liege lord, who 
as a Christian, perhaps in the ardor of a new convert, 
was humbly submissive to their dictates; even the 
clergy were at length swept away by the torrent. In 


1 Of two hermits (viii. 39), one was drunken, one had a wife! 

2 One priest only, three women, one of whom was Gregory’s mother, 
witnessed this miracle. Gregory was present, but the privilege was not 
vouchsafed to him. ‘Uni tantum presbytero, et tribus mulieribus, ex 
quibus una mater mea erat, hec videre licitum fuit; cateri non viderunt. 
Aderam fateor, et ego huic festivitati, sed hec videre non merui.’’ —De 
Glor. Martyr. yol. ii. p. 361. 


398 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


the fifth century we find bishops in arms, and at the 
head of fighting men ; and though at first the common 
feeling protested against this desecration, though bear- 
ing arms was prohibited by the decrees of councils ; 
yet where, as in some cases, the wars in which they 
might engage were defensive, and for the preservation 
of the most sacred rights of man ; the step once taken, 
the sight once familiarized to this incongruous confu- 
sion of the armed warrior and the peaceful ecclesiastic, 
the evil would grow up with fatal rapidity. When 
the ecclesiastical dignities and honors, from their wealth 
and authority, began to tempt the barbarians, who 
would no longer leave them to the exclusive posses- 
sion of the Romans, those barbarians would be the more 
disposed to assume them, if they no longer absolute- 
ly imposed inglorious inactivity or humiliating patience. 
While on the other hand, the barbarian invested in the 
priesthood would more jealously justify himself for 
thus, in one sense, descending from his high place as a 
warrior, by retaining some of the habits and character 
of the free German conqueror. At length, though at 
a much later period, the tenure of land implying mili- 
tary service, as the land came more and more into the 
hands of the clergy, the ecclesiastic would be embar- 
rassed more and more by his double function; till at 
length we arrive at the Prince Bishop, or the feudal 
Abbot, alternately with the helmet and the mitre on 
his head, the crozier and the lance in his hand; now 
in the field in the front of his armed vassals, now on 
his throne in the church in the midst of his chanting 
choir.} 


1 The first bishops who appeared in arms, and actually slew their ene- 
mnies, shocked Gregory of Tours. ‘‘Salarius et Sagittarius fratres atque 


Cuap. II. DONATIONS TO THE CLERGY. 399 


All things throughout this great social revolu- 
tion tended to advance and consolidate the sacerdotal 
power. The clergy, whether as among the Goths and 
other Arian nations, who had their own bishops, or 
among the Franks, where they were reverenced for 
their intellectual as well as their spiritual superiority, 
became more completely a separate and distinct cor- 
porate body, filling up their own ranks by their own 
election, with less and less regard even to the assent of 
the laity; for the barbarous laity, of another race, 
ceased to pretend to any share of the election of the 
clergy. They possessed more completely the power 
of ecclesiastical legislation. In the confusion and 
breaking up of all ancient titles to property, more 
would be constantly falling into their hands. The 
barbarians for the good of their souls would abandon 
more readily lands which they had just acquired by the 
sword, and of which they had hardly learned the value ; 
while the Romans, in perpetual danger of being forci- 
bly despoiled, would more easily make over to the safer 
custody of Churchmen, lands which under such protec- 
tion they might more securely cultivate. Already in 
France the kings are jealous of their vast acquisitions ; 
King Chilperic hated the clergy for this reason, and 
was hated by them with emulous intensity. He com- 
episcopi qui non cruce ccelesti muniti, sed galea aut lancea seculari armati, 
multos manibus propriis quod pejus est, interfecisse referuntur.’’ —iv. 41. 
Compare v. 17. — Merovingian France still offers the most startling anom- 
alies. While thus advancing in power, their persons are not sacred in 
these wild times. The Bishop of Marseilles is exposed to cruel usage. 
Eyen the strong feeling of caste has lost its influence. They are murdered 
and burned with as little remorse as the profane. Gregory, who stands up 
on some occasions for their inviolability, on others despondingly acquiesces 
m their fate; if not in its justice, in its being too much in the common 


order of things to shock public feeling. Some of them, by his own account, 
tichly deserved their doom. 


400 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IIL. 


plained that all the wealth of the crown was swallowed 
up by the Church! The Church revenged itself by 
consoling visions of Chilperic’s damnation. The juris- 
diction of the bishops, at first confined to strictly relig- 
ious concerns, would gradually extend itself, perhaps 
from confidence in their superior justice, their intel- 
lectual superiority, the absence or the deficiency of the 
administrators of the Roman law, under which every- 
where the Romans still lived. Where other magistrates 
were suppressed, or had forfeited or abandoned their 
functions, they would become the sole magistrates. 
Causes regarding property, bequests, and others of a 
more intricate kind, which might perplex the greater 
simplicity of the barbaric codes, or embarrass the 
straightforward justice of barbaric tribunals, would be 
referred to their superior wisdom. The bishops thus 
gradually became more independent of their college of 
presbyters; they grew into a separate order in the 
State as well as in the Church. 

Nor can it be wondered that partly in self defence, 
partly for his own relative aggrandizement, the weak- 
er and conquered Roman, conscious of his intellect- 
ual superiority — especially the Roman ecclesiastic — 
should abuse his power, and make, as it were, reprisals 
on the rude and ignorant barbarian conqueror.” His 
own religion would become more and more supersti- 
tious, for the more superstitious the more awful. Art 
and cunning are the natural and constant weapons of 


1“ Ajebat enim plerumque, ecce pauper remanet fiscus noster, ecce divitize 
nostre ad ecclesias translate: nulli penitus nisi soli episcopi regnant; peri 
thonos noster, et translatus est ad episcopos civitatum.’’ — vi. 46. 

2 The Jews were their rivals in wealth. Cantinus, the cruel Bishop of 
Tours, has large money dealings with the Jews. Eufranius borrows large 
sums of the Jews to buy the same bishopric. —iv. 35. 


Cuap. II. DONATIONS TO THE CLERGY. 401 


enfeebled civilization against strong invading barbarism. 
Throughout the period the strongest superstitious ter- 
rors cross the most lawless and most cruel acts.!. There 
are several curious instances in the Frankish annals in 
which the ecclesiastical kindred speaks more strongly 
to the alarmed conscience than that of blood to the 
heart. Those who without compunction, murder their 
nearest relatives, their children or their husband, have 
some reluctance to shed the blood of those whom they 
have held over the baptismal font. Brunehaut spares 
Borthefrid because she has been godmother to his 
daughter. 

The ecclesiastics must have been almost more than 
men, certainly far beyond their time, to have resisted 
the temptation of what would seem innocent or benefi- 
cent fraud, to overawe or to control the ignorant bar- 
barian. 

The good Bishop Gregory of Tours is himself con- 
cerned in an affair in which the violence and religious 
fears of King Chilperic singularly contrast with the 
subtlety of the ecclesiastics. Chilperic sends a letter to 
St. Martin of Tours requesting the Saint to inform him 
whether he might force Meroveus out of the sanctuary. 
It will hardly be doubted that he received an answer ; 
and that the majesty of the sanctuary suffered no loss. 
St. Martin of Tours was the great oracle of the Franko- 
Latin kingdoms:? kings flock to his shrine to make 
their offerings, to hear his judgments. No two cities 


1 A bishop of Rheims gives a safe conduct under oath on a chest of 
relics; but having first stolen away the relics, holds the oath not binding. 
—Fredegar. ο. 97. Eichhorn quotes a similar fraud of Hatto, Archbishop 
of Maintz.—i. p. 514. 

% Michelet writes in his flashing way, ‘‘Ce que Delphes était pour la 
Gréce. 


VOL. I. 26 


402 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


in the north of France, not even the royal residences, 
approached the two great ecclesiastical capitals, Rheims 
and Tours. Lands and wealth were poured at the feet 
of the Church. Dagobert bestowed twenty-seven ham- 
lets or towns on the monastery of St. Denys.1_ His son 
bestowed on St. Remaclus of Tongres twelve square 
leagues in the forest of Ardennes.2~ The Church of 
Rheims possessed vast territories, some of which it may 
have received from the careless and lavish bounty of 
Clovis himself; much more, by a pious anachronism, 
was made to rest on that ancient and venerable tenure.® 


1 Gesta Dagobert. c. 35. 

2 This subject is resumed when the clergy are considered as co-legislators 
with the Teutonic kings and people. 

8 Vit. St. Sigebert. Austras.,c.4. Script. Franc. See the curious passage 
in Frodoard, quoted by Michelet. 


Cap. III. OSTROGOTHIC KINGDOM. 403 


CHAPTER III. 
THEODORIC THE OSTROGOTH. 


Tue Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy shows the earliest 
and not the least noble form of this new s0~ 9. :ogothic 
ciety, which grew out of the yet unfused *s*™ 
elements of the Latin and Teutonic races. To the 
strong opposition between the barbarian and Roman 
parts of the community was added the almost strong- 
er contrast of religious difference. The Sovereign of 
Italy, the civil monarch of the Papal Diocese, was an 
Arian. 

Theodoric’s invasion of Italy was the migration of a 
people, not the inroad of an army.! His Goths were 
accompanied by their wives and children, with all the 
movable property which they had possessed in their 
settlements in Pannonia. ‘Theodoric had extorted from 
the gratitude and the fears of the Eastern Emperor, if 
not a formal grant of the kingdom of Italy, a permis- 
sion to rescue the Roman West from the dominion of 
Odoacer. The Herulian king, after two great battles, 
and a siege of three years in Ravenna, wrested from 
Theodoric a peace, by the terms of which the Herulian 
and the Gothic monarchs were to reign over Odoacer 


1 Compare, on the number of the Gothic invaders, Sartorius, Essai sur 
VEtat Civil et Physique des Peuples d’Italie sous le Gouvernement des 
Goths, note, page 242. 


404 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


Italy, in joint sovereignty. Such treaty could not be 
lasting. Odoacer, either the victim of treachery, or his 
own treacherous designs but anticipated by the superior 
craft and more subtle intelligence of Theodoric, was 
assassinated at a banquet.1. The Herulians were dis- 
possessed of the third portion of the lands which they 
had extorted from the Roman proprietors, and dis- 
persed, some into Gaul, some into other parts of the 
Empire. The Gothic followers of Theodoric took their 
place, and Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, commenced a 
λον. 493-526. reign of thirty-three years, in which Italy 
reposed in peace under his just and vigorous, and pa- 
rental administration. 

Throughout the conquest, and the establishment of 
the Gothic kingdom, the increasing power and impor- 
tance of the Christian ecclesiastics forces itself upon the 
attention. They are ambassadors, mediators in trea- 
ties, decide the wavering loyalty or instigate the revolt 
of cities. Even before the expiration of the Empire, 
Glycerius abdicates the throne, and retires to the bish- 
opric of Salona, not, it should seem, from any strong 
religious vocation, or weariness of political 
intrigue. He is afterwards concerned in the 
murder of another of his short-lived successors, the 
Emperor Nepos, and is promoted, as the reward of his 
services, to the Archbishopric of Milan. Epiphanius, 
the Bishop of Pavia, bears to Theodoric at Milan the 
surrender and offer of allegiance from that great city. 


Bishops em- 
ployed. 


1 The most probable view of this transaction is, that the Herulian chief- 
tains, impatient of the equal dominion of the Goths, had organized a for- 
midable insurrection, of which Odoacer, possibly not an accomplice, was 
nevertheless the victim. The Byzantine writers, Procopius, Marcellinus, 
betray their hatred. Ennodius and Cassiodorus of course favor Theodoric. 
Gibbon declares against him. 


Crap. III. BISHOPS EMPLOYED. 405 


John, the Bishop, was employed by Odoacer to nego- 
tiate the treaty of Ravenna.) Before this time, when- 
ever a difficult negotiation occurred, Epiphanius was 
persuaded to undertake it. He had been ambassador 
from Ricimer to Anthemius, from Nepos to Euric the 
Visigoth. Theodoric admired the dignified beauty and 
esteemed the saintliness of character in the Catholic 
Epiphanius, and perhaps intended that his praises of 
the bishop should be heard in Pavia, where from his 
virtues and charities, he enjoyed unbounded popular- 
ity: ‘Behold a man whose peer cannot be found 
throughout the West: he is the great bulwark of Pa- 
via ;— to his care I may intrust my wife and children, 
and devote myself entirely to war.”? Epiphanius was 
permitted to plead the cause of the Herulians who had 
risen in arms in the north of Italy after the death of 
Odoacer. The eloquence of the Bishop arrested the 
inexorable vengeance or justice of Theodoric. He 
was employed even on a more apostolic mission —to 
rescue from slavery those who had been sold or had 
fled into slavery beyond the Alps. Gundebald the 
Burgundian and his chieftains melted at the persuasive 
words of Epiphanius, who entered Pavia at the head 
of 6000 bond-slaves, rescued by his influence from sla- 
very. Epiphanius made a third journey to Ravenna, 
to obtain a remission of taxes in favor of his distressed 
people.® 

The Ostrogothic kingdom was an intermediate state 
between the Roman Empire and the barbarian mon- 

1 Procop. 1. i. ¢. i. p. 9, Edit. Bonn. 

2 Ennodii Vita Epiphan. 

8 Ennodius says of Epiphanius, —“‘ Inter dissidentes principes solus esset, 


qui pace frueretur amborum.’’—p. 1011. He even overawed the fierce 
Rugians, at one time masters of Pavia. 


400 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IIL. 


Union of the archies. It was the avowed object of Theod- 
re oric to fuse together the Teutonic vigor with 
the Roman civilization, to alloy the fierceness of the 
Gothic temperament with the social culture of Italy.! 
The Romans still held many of the chief’ civil offices. 
Liberius, Symmachus, Boethius, Cassiodorus, were the 
ministers of the Gothic king. Yet the two elements 
of the society had no tendency to assimilation or union; 
the justice and wisdom of the king might mitigate, he 
could not reconcile this discord, which could 
only be finally extinguished by years of mu- 
tual intercourse, by intermarriages, and above all by 
perfect community of religious faith. The Gothic and 
the Roman races stood apart in laws, in usages, in civil 
position, as well as in character. Possessors, by the 
right of conquest, of the one-third of the lands in 
Italy, of which they exacted the surrender, and for 
which they tacitly engaged to protect the whole from 
foreign invasion,” the Goths settled as an armed aristoc- 
racy among a people who seemed content to purchase 


very imper- 
fect. 


1 “Ti semper fuerint (Gothi, sc.) in laudis medio constituti, ut et Ro- 
manorum prudentiam caperent, et virtutem gentium possiderent. 
Consuetudo nostra feris mentibus inseratur donec truculentus animus 
vivere velle consuescat.’’ —Cassiod. Var. Epist. iii. 23. In another pas- 
sage he exhorts the Goths to put on the manners of the toga, and to cast 
off those of barbarism. “ Intelligite homines non tam corpored vi quam 
ratione preeferri.’’ — Lib. iii. Epist. 17. When he invaded Gaul, Theodoric 
declared himself the protector of the Romans: “ Delectamur jure Romano 
vivere quos armis vindicamus. . . . Nobis propositum est, Deo juvante, 
sic vivere, ut subjecti se doleant nostrum dominium tardius acquisisse.”? — 
iii. 43. But the most clear and distinct indication of his views is in the 
formula for the appointment of the Count of the Goths: ‘Unum vos 
amplectatur vivendi votum, quibus unum esse constat imperium.’’ The 
anonym. Vales. says that the poor Roman (miser) affected to be a Goth, 
the rich (utilis) Goth to be a Roman. 

2 “Vos autem Romani magno studio Gothos diligere debetis, qui in pace 
numerosos vobis populos faciunt, et universam rempublicam per bella de- 
fendunt.’’ — Cassiod. vil. 3. 


Crap. III. DIVISION OF LANDS. 407 


their security at the price of one third of their posses- 
sions. This transfer was carried on with nothing of 
the violence and irregularity of plunder or confiscation, 
but with the utmost order and equity. It was, in truth, 
but a new form of the law of conquest, which Rome 
had enforced, first upon Italy, afterwards on the worl 1. 
Nor was it an obsolete and forgotten hardship, the ex- 
pulsion of a free, and flourishing, and happy peasantry 
from their paternal homesteads, and hereditary fields ; 
they were only like those more partial no doubt, but 
more cruel ejectments, when the conquering Triumvir, 
during the later republic, confiscated whole provinces, 
and apportioned them among his own 50]- pion of 
diery.!_ The followers of Odoacer had already, *"** 

if not to so great an extent, enforced the same surren- 
der, and the Goth only expelled the Herulian from his 
newly acquired estate. Large tracts in Italy were ut- 
terly desolate and uncultivated — almost the whole 
under imperfect culture.2 This, in the best times of 
the Roman aristocracy, had been the natural and re- 
corded consequence of the vast estates accumulated by 
one proprietor, and cultivated by slaves or at best by 
poor métayers, and was now aggravated by the general 
ruin of that aristocracy, the difficulty of maintaining 
slaves, and the effects of long warfare. This revolu- 
tion at least assisted in breaking up these overgrown 
properties, combining as it did with constant aliena- 


1 Theodoric considered that he had succeeded to the right of the Roman 
people in apportioning land: he prohibited the forcible entrance upon farms 
without authority. 

2 “Vides universa Italixz loca originariis viduata cultoribus.’’ Read the 
whole speech of Theodoric to Epiphanius of Pavia on the desolation espec- 
ially of Liguria. —Ennod. Vit. p. 1014. “ Latifundia perdidere Italiam,”’ 
the axiom of all the Roman economists. 


408 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


tions to the Church, and afterwards to monasteries. 
Agriculture in Italy received a new impulse,' the more 
necessary, as it ceased to command foreign resources. 
The harvests of the East, and of Egypt and Libya, 
had long been assigned to the maintenance of the new 
capital; and Western Africa, desolated by the Van- 
dals, no longer poured in her supplies. Theodoric 
watched with parental solicitude the progress of agri- 
culture, and the irregular and uncertain supplies of 
corn to his Italian subjects, who were now thrown on 
their own resources. His correspondence is full of 
orders on this important subject. Italy began to ex- 
port corn. The price, both of corn and wine, fell to a 
very moderate amount.? 

The Gothic king claimed all the imposts formerly 
paid to the imperial treasury ; the Curiz were still re- 
sponsible for the collection, but Theodoric inculeated 
moderation in the exaction of the imperial claims.? 
The Goths appear to have been lable to the same 
taxes with the Romans. The clergy had as yet no 
Theodoric. immunities. Theodoric himself aspired to be 
the impartial sovereign of both races. In him met 

1 It is curious that most of these edicts prohibit exportation. See Cassi- 
odorus. War. Lib. i. 31, 34, 35 (a strange document in point of style). 
Lib. ii. 12, is a prohibition of the export of bacon, an important article of 
food; 20 gives orders to send corn from Rayenna to Liguria, which was 
suffering famine. The Gothic army in Gaul was supported by the proy- 
ince, not from Italy (iii. 41,2), and during a famine Southern Italy and 
Sicily relieved Gaul (iv. 5,7). On the other hand, Theodoric endeavored 
to obtain corn from Spain for the supply of Rome; but it seems the dealers 


had found a better market in Africa (vy. 35). 
2 “ Sexaginta modios triticorum in solidum ipsius tempore fuerunt, et 


vinum triginta amphore in solidum.’?— Anon. Vales. Without ascer- 
taining the exact relative value, we may infer that these were unusually low 
prices. 


8 Var. i. 19, iv. 19. 
4 iv. 14. 


Crap. III. THEODORIC. 409 


and blended the Roman and the Goth: in peace he ex- 
changed the Gothic military dress for the purple of the 
Roman Emperor.! He preserved the ancient titles both 
of the Republic and of the Empire. He appointed 
Consuls, Patricians, Questors, as well as Counts of 
largesses, of provinces, and some of the more servile 
titles of the East.2~ The conqueror was earnestly de- 
sirous to secure for his Italian subjects the blessings of 
peace: though his arms were employed in Gaul for 
thirty out of thirty-three years of his reign, Italy, 
under his dominion, escaped the ravages of war.? The 
police was so strict throughout Italy, that merchants 
thronged from all parts. A man might leave his silver 
or gold as safely on his farm as in a walled city. He 
bequeathed peace to his successors; he en- peace of 
couraged all the arts of peace. The posts ΤΩ: 
were arranged on a new and effective footing.» The 
great roads, the bridges, the ruined walls, and falling 
buildings were restored to their ancient strength and 
splendor. Verona, Pavia,® above all Ravenna, were 
adorned with new palaces, porticos, baths, amphithea- 
tres, basilicas, and, doubtless, churches. In the latter 


1 Muratori, Annal. d’ Italia, iv. 380. 

2 See the sixth book of the Epistles. 

8 Ennodius says, in Vit. Epiphan. — “ Cujus post triumphum spoliatum 
vagina gladium nullus aspexit.’”’—p. 1012. “Ergo preclarus et bone 
voluntatis in omnibus, qui regnavit annos xxxiii. cujus temporibus felicitas 
est sequuta Italiam per annos xxx. ita ut etiam pax pergentibus esset 
(Pergentibus successoribus ejus).”’ — Wagner’s note, Anonym. Vales. 

4 Anonym. Vales. 

5 Epist. i. 29, iv. 47, v. 5. 

6 Anonym. Vales. This writer, in his admiration of the golden age of 
Theodoric, declares that he did not repair the gates of the cities, as, being 
now never closed, the inhabitants entering and going out by night as well 
as by day, they had become of no use. ‘“ Hoc per totam Italiam augurium 
habebat, ut nulli civitati portas faceret.”’ 


410 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III 


city Theodoric avowedly aimed at rivalling the magnif- 
icence of Rome; but Rome was not plundered or sac- 
rificed to the new capital. The care of Theodoric 
was extended to the restoration of her stately but in- 
jured edifices.1 The Cloacze, which excited the won- 
der of the barbarians, and distinguished Rome from all 
other cities, were to be repaired entirely at the public 
cost.2 The water from the aqueducts was no longer to 
be directed to private use, for the turning of mills, or 
irrigation of gardens, but devoted to the general bene- 
fit of the citizens.? The prefect of the city and his 
lieutenant, the Count of Rome, and the public archi- 
tect 4 were especially charged to keep up the forests of 
stately buildings, the statues which peopled the city, 
the herds of equestrian images.? In these terms the 
barbarians expressed their astonishment at the yet in- 
exhausted treasures of art in the imperial city. The 
florid panegyric of Theodoric describes the aged city 
as renewing her youth; noble edifices were completed 
nearly as soon as planned. Theodoric is almost a second 
Romulus — as it is greater to ward off the fall, than to 
have commenced the foundations of a city.® 

1 Var. i. 21. Compare ii. 34. 

2 Var. iii. 30. 

8 Var. iii. 31. 

4 On the general policy of Theodoric in this respect, ‘‘ Decet principem 
cura, que ad rempublicam prestat augendam, et veré dignum est regem 
edificiis palatia decorare. Absit enim ut ornatui cedamus veterum, qui 
impares non sumus beatitudini seculorum.’’ — Var. i. 6. ‘‘ Decora facies 
imperii, testimonium preconiale regnorum.’’ — Var. vii. 5. 

5 “ Mirabilis sylva menium, populus statuarum, greges equorum.’? — 
Var. vii. 5: compare vii. 13, 16. These latter are the formularies for the 
appointment of the Comes Romanus, and the architect of the public works. 
— Ennod. apud Sirmond. p. 967. 

6 Theodoric commands marmorarii to be sent from Rayenna to Rome: 


these were workers in mosaic (we hear nothing of painters or sculptors), 
which art the barbarians seem to have especially admired. “ Qui eximié 


Cuap. ΠῚ’ * THEODORIC. 411 


When Theodoric appeared in Rome, the Emperor 
might seem to revive in greater power and majesty 
than he had displayed since the days of Theodosius the 
Great. The largesses of corn were distributed, though 
to a smaller population, with a liberality which rivalled 
the earlier days of the Empire.’ 

Though himself taking no pleasure in savage or idle 
amusements, the barbaric king, considering such sub- 
‘ects not quite beneath the care of the sovereign, per- 
haps not without some politic design to occupy the 
proud and turbulent metropolis, indulged his subjects 
with their ancient spectacles, in such pomp as to recall 
the famous names of Trajan and Valentinian.? The 
gladiators alone had been suppressed by the influence 
of Christian opinion; and even if humanity had not 
won this triumph, Rome had no longer barbarian cap- 
tives, whom she could devote to the carnage of these 
mimic wars. But the arena was still open to the com- 
bats of wild beasts.2 The pantomimes, of which alone 
Theodoric speaks with interest, were frequent and 
splendid. The chariot races were attended with all 
the old passionate ardor, and the contending colors 
were espoused with fanatic zeal by the opposite factions, 


divisa conjungunt et venis colludentibus illigata naturalem faciem lauda- 
biliter mentiantur. . . . De arte veniat, quod vincat naturam, discoloria 
crusta marmorum gratissima picturarum varietate texantur.’’ — Var. i. 6. 

1 Anonym. Vales. Compare the formulary for the appointment of the 
Prefectus annone. 

2 Anonym. Vales. The edicts are prefaced with a kind of apology. 


“Ticet inter gloriosas reipublice curas . . . pars minima videatur, princi- 

em de spectaculis loqui, tamen pro amore reipublice Romane non pigebit 
? 

has cogitationes intrare.”’ — Var. i. 20. 


3 Var. v. 42, where the feritas spectaculi is reproved. Among Theodoric’s 
buildings is mentioned an amphitheatre at Pavia. 

4 He calls it a wonderful art, which is often more expressive than lan- 
guage. — Var. i. 20. 


412 LATIN CHRISTIANATY. Book III. 


on which the Sovereign, though he did not condescend 
to take a part, looked with indulgence. He allowed the 
utmost license to the expression of public feeling, and 
strongly reproved the officious or haughty interference 
of the Senate for attempting to repress this legitimate 
freedom.! 

But Theodoric, in his religious character, is the 
Theodorie’s chief object of our study. The Christian 
religious δ . Ξ 
rule. sovereign must find his proper place in the 
history of Christianity. The King of the Ostrogoths 
not merely held together in peace and amity the two 
races, the Roman and the Barbarian, but even the 
Orthodox and the Arian reposed throughout his reign, 
if not in friendly quiet, at least without any violation 
of the public peace. 

It was fortunate, perhaps, that in a state so divided, 
the Sovereign was of the religion of the few. He 
escaped the temptation to persecute, since it would 
have been idle to suppose that he could persuade or 
compel so strong a majority to embrace his detested 
opinions. If the wise spirit of toleration had not led 
him to moderate measures, the good sense of the 
Sovereign would have compelled him to respect the 
inveterate tenets of the larger, the more intellectually 
powerful part of his subjects. Still, though his Byzan- 
tine education might have warned Theodoric against 
the danger, if the Sovereign should plunge too deeply 
into ecclesiastical affairs, his forbearance was neverthe- 


1 “Mores autem graves in spectaculo quis requirit? Ad circum nesciunt 
convenire Catones.”’ —i. 27. It is evident that the senate and the people 
had taken different sides. The senators are reproyed for introducing their 
armed slaves among the audience. On the other hand, the complaint of a 
senator of personal insult was to be carried before the pretorian prefect. 
There is a remarkable tone of good-humored moderation in all the edicts: 
compare Var. i. 27, 80 to 33. 


Cuar. III. THEODORIC’S IMPARTIALITY. 413 


less extraordinary, considering the all-searching, all- 
pervading activity of his administration; and that the 
religious supremacy had been so leng a declared pre- 
rogative of that Imperial power, which had now passed 
into his hands. Imperial edicts since the days of 
Constantine had been solicited, respected, enforced by 
the hierarchs so long as they spoke the dominant 
doctrine; they had become part of the code of the 
Empire; even when adverse to the prevailing opinion, 
they had been always supported by one faction at least, 
and received with awe by the more indifferent multi- 
tudes. The doctrine that the clergy, the bishops, or 
the Roman Pontiff, were the sole legislators of Chris- 
tianity, was so precarious and undefined, that we still 
cannot altogether withhold our admiration from the 
wisdom of Theodoric. The Arianism, indeed, of the 
Goths had not the fresh ardor or burning zeal of recent 
proselytism. It was a kind of religious accident, arising 
out of their first conversion, which happened to take 
place during the reign of an Arian Emperor, and 
through Arian missionaries. It had settled into a quiet 
hereditary faith. There was no peculiar congeniality 
in its tenets with the Teutonic mind, which was rather 
disposed to receive what it was taught with implicit 
faith ; and, though no doubt averse to the subtleties of 
the Greek theology, neither comprehended, nor cared to 
comprehend, these controversies. It was content to 
adhere to the original creed,! or, possibly, might feel 


1 Salvian is inclined to judge the heresy of the barbarians with charity ; 
perhaps that he might inveigh more fiercely against the vices of the 
Catholic Romans. ‘ Barbari quippe homines, immo potius hwnane erudi- 
tionis expertes, qui nihil omnino sciunt. nisi quod a doctoribus suis audiunt, 
quod audiunt, sic sequuntur . . . hxretici ergo sunt, sed non scientes.’’ — 
De Gubernat. Dei, lib. v. 


414 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


some pride in differing from the abject race, over which 
it asserted its civil and military superiority. 

The serene impartiality of Theodoric’s government 
Theodorie’s 1M religious affairs extorts the praise of the 
impartiality. most zealous Catholic.!_ He attempted nothing 
against the Catholic faith. Towards the close of the 
Gothic monarchy, the royal ambassadors to Belisarius 
defied their enemies to prove a case in which the 
Goths had persecuted the Catholics.2. Theodoric treat- 
ed the Pope, the Bishops, and Clergy, with grave 
respect: in the more distinguished, such as Epipha- 
nius, he ever placed the highest esteem and confidence. 
We shall behold him showing as much reverence, 
and even bounty, to the Church of St. Peter, as 
though he had been a Catholic. The poor who were 
dependent on that Church were maintained by his 
liberality.2 The Arian clergy also shared in the 
tolerant sentiments of their King. Of their position, 
character, influence; of the churches they built or oc- 
cupied ; of their services, of their processions, of their 
ceremonies ; of any aggression or intrigue on their 
part; of any collision, which we might have supposed 
inevitable with the Latin clergy, history, and history 
entirely written by the Catholics, is totally silent ; and 
that silence is the best testimony, either to their unex- 
ampled moderation, as the religious teachers of the few 
indeed, but those few the conquerors and rulers, or to 
the wiser policy of the King, which could constrain even 


1 “ Nihil contra religionem catholicam tentans,”’ thus writes the anony- 
mous historian, himself a devout Catholic. Ennodius, in praising the 
religion, forgets the Arianism of Theodoric.—Paneg. p. 971. Anonym. 
Vales. 

2 Procop. de bell. Gothic. ii. ο. 6. 

8 Procop. Hist. Arcan., p. 145, edit. Bonn. 


Cuap. IIL. THEODORIC’S IMPARTIALITY. 415 


honest religious zeal. Theodoric himself adhered firmly 
but calmly to his native Arianism ; but, all the conver- 
sions seem to have been from the religion of the King ; 
even his mother became a Catholic ;! and some other 
distinguished persons of the court embraced a different 
creed without forfeiting the royal favor. Theodoric 
was the protector of Church property,’ which he him- 
self increased by large grants. This property, with 
some exceptions, was still liable to the common im- 
posts. His wise finance would admit no exemptions, 
but in gifts he was prodigal to magnificence. The 
clergy were amenable to the common law of the 
Empire, and were summoned before the royal courts 
(the stern law would not be eluded) for all ordinary 
crimes ;° but all ecclesiastical offences were left to the 
ecclesiastical authorities.6 Nor, although the Herulian 


1 “Mater Theodorici, Erivileva dicta, catholica quidem erat que in 
baptismo Eusebia dicta.’?— Anonym. Vales. 

2 Note of Valesius to Anonym. at the end of Wagner’s Ammianus 
Marcellinus, page 399. — Var. x. 34 a. 26. These cases belong to the suc- 
cessors of Theodoric. With Gibbon, I reject the story of his beheading a 
Catholic priest for turning Arian in order to gain his favor! It is most 
probable that the man had been guilty of some capital crime, and sought 
to save his life by apostacy. It was not improbably either Theodorus or 
Count Odoin, who had formed a conspiracy against him in Rome, and was 
beheaded for his treason: compare Hist. Miscel. p. 612. 

8 Var. iv. 17, orders to his general Ibas in Gaul to restore certain lands 
to the Church of Narbonne. 

4 “Tf” he writes to Count Geberic, “‘in our piety, we bestow lands on 
the church, we ought to maintain rigidly what she possesses already.’’ — 
Var. iv. 20. 

5 Januarius, Bishop of Salona, is sued for a debt, though for lights for 
the church; a Bishop Peter for the restitution of an inheritance; the Priest 
Laurence for sacrilegious violation of a tomb in search of treasure; Antony, 
Bishop of Pola, for the restitution of a house: compare Du Roure, Hist. 
de Théodorie, i. p. 358. 

6 See the celebrated privilege accorded to the clergy of Rome by Atha- 
laric. — Var. viii. 34. This, however, was no more than arbitration. ‘“ Ex- 
ceptos a tramite justitiz non patimur inveniri.’’—Cassiod. ii. 29. Yet 


410 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


Odoacer had claimed and exercised the right of con- 
firming the Papal election, did Theodoric interfere in 
those elections until compelled by the sanguinary 
tumults which distracted the city. Even then he inter- 
fered only as the anxious guardian of the public peace, 
and declined the arbitration between the conflicting 
claims, which both parties, hoping for his support, 
endeavored to force on the reluctant monarch. 

The feuds of the Roman clergy, which broke out on 
the customary occasion of the election of a new Pope, 
and brought them to the foot of their Arian sovereign, 
αν. 498. may be traced back to a more remote source. 
Contesteyr Anastasius, as has been seen, during his short 
the Popedom- Hontificate, had deviated into the paths of 
peace and conciliation. He had endeavored by mild- 
ness, and by no important concession (he insisted not 
on the condemnation of Acacius), to reunite the 
Churches of Rome and Constantinople. This un- 
wonted policy had apparently formed two parties in 
the Roman clergy, one inclined to the gentler measures 
of Anastasius, the other to the sterner and more inex- 
orable tone of his predecessors. Each party elected 
AOS their Pope, the latter the Deacon Symma- 
4p. 49%. chus, the former the Archpresbyter Lau- 
rentius.! The rival Pontiffs were consecrated on the 
same day, one in the Lateran Church, the other in that 
of St. Mary. At the head of the party of Laurentius, 
stood Festus or Faustus Niger, the chief of the Senato- 
rial order. He had been the ambassador of Theodoric 
at Constantinople, to demand the acknowledgment of 


Theodoric, from respect, was unwilling to punish a priest. ‘ Scelus quod 
nos pro sacerdotali honore relinquimus impunitum.’’ —iv. 18. 
1 Anastasius died Noy. 17. — Muratori, sub ann. 


Cuar. Π|. CONTESTED ELECTION FOR POPEDOM. 417 


the Goth as King of Italy. He had succeeded in his 
mission ; perhaps had been prevailed upon to attempt 
the reconciliation of the two Churches, either by per- 
suading the acceptance of the Henoticon by the Roman 
clergy, or more probably on the terms of compromise 
approved by Pope Anastasius. The two factions en- 
countered with the fiercest hostility ; the clergy, the 
senate, and the populace were divided ; the streets of 
the Christian city ran with blood, as in the days of 
republican strife! The conflicting claims of the prel- 
ates were brought before the throne of Theodoric. 
The simple justice of the Goth decided that the ,bishop 
who had the greater number of suffrages, and had been 
first consecrated, had the best right to the throne. 
Symmachus was acknowledged as Pope: he held a 
synod at Rome which passed two memorable decrees, 
one almost in the terms of the old Roman law, severely 
condemning all ecclesiastical ambition, all canvassing, 
either for obtaining subscriptions, or administration 
of oaths, or promises for the papacy during the life- 
time of the Pope ;? the other declared the election to 
be in the majority of the clergy, thus virtually abro- 
gating the law of Odoacer. Laurentius (the, rival 
Pope was present at this synod) subscribed its de- 


1 Each party charged the other with these cruelties. The author of the 
Hist. Micell. asserts that Festus and Probinus, of the party of Laurentius, 
slew in the midst of Rome the greater part of the clergy and a great num- 
ber of citizens: a fragment of a writer on the other side (published by the 
impartial Muratori) ascribes these acts of violence, slaughter, and pillage, 
with many other vices, to Symmachus. Compare Annal. d’ Ital. sub ann. 
498. 

2 It was the language of the law de Ambitu, applied to ecclesiastical 
distinctions. It is enacted “propter frequentes ambitus quorundam, et 
ecclesiz puritatem, vel populi collisionem, que molesta et iniqua incom- 


petenter episcopatum desiderantium generavit ayiditas.’’ — Labbe, Concil., 
Ῥ. 1313. 
VOL. I. 27 


418 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book III. 


crees,' and returned to the more peaceful, perhaps to 
a wise man, the more enviable bishopric of Nocera. 

During this interval of peace, Theodoric for the 
Theodoric in first time visited the imperial city. He was 
av. 499. met by Pope Symmachus at the head of his 
clergy, by the Senate, which still numbered some few 
old and famous names, Anicii, Albini, Marcelli, and 
by the whole people, who crowded with demonstra- 
tions of the utmost joy around their barbarian sover- 
eign. Catholic and Arian, Goth and Roman, mingled 
their acclamations. Theodoric performed his devotions 
in St. Peter’s with the fervor of a Catholic. In the 
Senate he swore to maintain all the imperial laws, the 
rights and privileges of the Roman people. He cele- 
brated the Circensian games, in commemoration of all 
his triumphs, with the utmost magnificence ; ordered a 
distribution of one hundred and twenty bushels of corn 
annually to the poor, and set apart two hundred pounds 
of gold for the restoration of the imperial palace. The 
Bishop Fulgentius, witness of the splendor of Theod- 
oric’s reception, breaks out into these rapturous words: 
“If such be the magnificence of earth, what must be 
that of the heavenly Jerusalem!”? Theodoric re- 
mained in Rome six months, and then returned to 
Ravenna. 

During all this period, and the three or four follow- 
Charges ing years, the faction of Laurentius were 


against < 5 ° : 
Symmachus. watching their opportunity to renew the strife. 


1 Baronius sub ann. Muratori has some doubts. 

2 Anonym. Vales. Vita B. Fulgentii. 

8 There are two accounts of these transactions, — one that of Anastasius 
Bibliothecarius, or the anonymous papal biographer, favorable to Symma- 
chus; the other the anonymous Veronensis, published by Muratori. I have 
endeavored to harmonize them. Both agree that some years elapsed be- 
tween the accession of Symmachus and this new contest. 


a 


Onap. IL. TUMULTS IN ROME. 419 


Fearful charges began to be rumored against Symma- 
chus, no less than adultery,’ and the alienation of the, 
property of the see. Faustus, his implacable adversary, 
with the Consul Probinus and great part of the Senate, 
supported these criminations. The accusation was 
brought before the judgment-seat of Theodoric, sup- 
ported by certain Roman females of rank, who had 
been suborned, it was said, by the enemies of Symma- 
chus. Symmachus was summoned to Ravenna, and 
confined in Rimini. But finding the preju- », nuts in 
dices in Ravenna darkening against him, he *™* 
escaped and returned to Rome. Laurentius had also 
secretly entered the capital. The sanguinary tumults 
between the two factions broke out with greater fury ; 
priests were sacrilegiously slain, monasteries fired, and 
even sacred virgins treated with the utmost indignity. 
The Senate petitioned the King to send a 4». 503. 
visitor to judge the cause of the Pontiff. A royal 
commission was issued to Peter, Bishop of Altino. 
But instead of a calm mediator between the conflicting 
parties, or an equitable judge, the visitor threw himself 
into the party of Laurentius.2 The possessions of the 
Church were, in part at least, seized and withholden 
from Symmachus; he was commanded to give up the 
slaves of his household that they might be examined,® 
it should seem, by torture according to the ancient 
usage.* 

1 Anonym. Veron. —confirmed by Ennodius, p. 1366. 

2 Ennod. Apologet. pro Synod., p. 987. 

8 This corresponded with the two heads of accusation. The former 
provided against the alleged alienation of the church property, the latter 
referred to that of adultery. 

4 This is a remarkable fact, in the first place, showing that slaves formed 


the household of the Pope, and that, by law, they were yet liable to torture. 
This seems clear from the words of Ennodius, “Sed, credo, replicabitis: 


420 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book ΠΙ. 


Theodoric, still declining the jurisdiction over these 
pSynoas of + eCClesiastical offences, summoned a synod of 
acs Italian prelates to meet at Rome. The synod 
held two successive sessions, and throughout their pro- 
ceedings may be traced their consciousness of their 
embarrassing position, which is increased as the reports 
of these proceedings have passed through later writers.! 
They were assembled under the authority of a layman, 
an heretical sovereign, too powerful to be disobeyed, 
and acting with such cautious dignity, justice, and 
impartiality as to command respect. They were as- 
sembled to judge the supreme Pontiff, the Metropolitan 
of the west, the asserted, and by most acknowledged, 
head of Christendom. Symmachus himself had the 
prudence to express his concurrence in the convocation 
of this synod. At the first session he set forth to attend 
the Council. He was attacked by the adverse party, 
showers of stones fell around him; many presbyters 
and others of his followers were severely wounded ; the 
Pontiff himself only escaped under the protection of the 
Gothic guard. The final, named the Palmary, synod 
was held in some edifice or hall in the palace called by 
that name; of this assembly the accounts are some- 


veritatem quam sponte prolata in illis vox habere non poterat, hane diver- 
sis cruciatibus e latebris suis religiosus tortor exegerat, ut dum pcenis cor- 
pora solverentur, que gesta fuisse noverat anima non celaret.’’ Ennodius 
is so obscure and figurative that he may seem to say, in the next sentence, 
that this proceeding was illegal, perhaps contrary to the canons. He ap- 
pears to consider it most contumelious that ecclesiastics should be judged on 
servile evidence. 

1 The whole question of the nuniber and dates of the synods held at this 
time is inextricably obscure. I chiefly follow Muratori. The synodus pal- 
maris is usually considered the fourth. One, in all probability two, were 
held by Symmachus before this new strife. The fourth was apparently a 
continuation of the third, but held’in a different place — unless the third 
was one held by Peter of Altino. 


Crar. TIT. DECREE OF PALMARY SYNOD. 491 


what more full and distinct. Throughout appears the 
manifest struggle in the ecclesiastical senate between the 
duty of submitting to the King, who earnestly Decree of the 
Palmary 
urges them to restore peace to Rome and to synod. 
Italy, and the reluctance to assume jurisdiction over 
the Bishop of Rome. Some expressions intimate that 
already the Bishop of Rome was held to be exempt 
from all human authority, and could be judged by God 
alone. If the Pope is called in question the whole 
episcopacy of the Church is shaken to its foundation.! 
Symmachus, however, had the wisdom to suppress 
all jealousy of a Council ® whose authority alone could 
completely clear him of these formidable accusations, 
and which he probably knew to be favorably impressed 
with his innocence. With the full authority of a synod 
of one hundred and twenty bishops he resumed the 
pontifical throne, without having compromised his dig- 
nity by thus condescending to their jurisdiction. In 
the wording of the sentence the Council claims at once 
the authority of the Holy Ghost, yet confines the jus- 
tification of Pope Symmachus to immunity and freedom 
from censure before men ;? it leaves to the secret coun- 


1 “Tn sacerdotibus czeteris potest si quid forte nutaverit, reformari: at si 
papa urbis vocatur in dubium, episcopatus videbitur, non jam episcopus, 
vacillare.’’ —Avit. ad Senat. apud Labbe, p. 1865. Avitus uses this argu- 
ment to the senators of Rome, “ Nec minus diligatis in ecclesia nostra 
sedem Petri, quam in civitate apicem mundi;’’ but Avitus acknowledges 
all priests, even the Pope, to be amenable to secular tribunals, of course for 
secular offences, ‘‘ quia sicut subditos nos esse terrenis potestatibus jubet 
arbiter cceli; staturos nos ante reges et principes in guacunque accusatione 
preedicens; ita non facile datur intelligi, qua vel ratione, vel lege ab in- 
ferioribus (inferior in ecclesiastical order) eminentior judicetur.”’ 

2 “ Judicia et iste voluit, amavit, attraxit, ingressus est; et quod posset. 
fideli corda doloris justi aculeis excitare, venerando concilio etiam contra 
se si mereretur, indulsit.’’ — Ennod., p. 981. 

3 “Quantum ad homines respicit (quia totum causis obsidentibus supe- 
rlus designitis, constat arbitrio divino fuisse dimissum) sit immunis et 


499, LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IIL 


sel of God the ultimate decision which they might not 
presume to pronounce ;/ nevertheless, with inconsis- 
tency, which it is difficult to understand, they seem to 
grant permission to the Pope to offer the divine mys- 
teries to the Christian people in all the churches of his 
jurisdiction.? 

Content with having restored peace to the Roman 
Affairs of the 8366, Lheodoric kept aloof from the religious 
ἘΝ dissensions which brooded in deepening dark- 
ness over the east. The Gothic king was devoting 
himself, dare we not say, to the more Christian office 
of maintaining the peace, securing the welfare, promot- 
ing the civilization, lightening the financial burdens of 
his people,’ in exercising for the benefit of Italy, the 


liber, et Christiane plebi sine aliqua de objectis oblatione, in omnibus 
ecclesiis suis, ad jus sedis sue pertinentibus, tradat divina mysteria.’’ — 
Labbe, p. 1825. 

1 Considering the horror in which the crime of adultery was held in an 
ecclesiastic, we can scarcely suppose, either that the severe Theodorie 
would not have driven him from his presence, or that an assemblage of 
prelates would have attempted to shield a pontiff, of precarious and dis- 
puted title, without full and conclusive evidence of his guiltlessness. 

2 The decisions of this synod were indeed impeached by the enemies of 
Symmachus, and Ennodius found it necessary to vindicate them in an 
apology, as he thought, eloquent, and therefore in parts altogether unin- 
telligible, at least so as to give but obscure glimpses of the facts. He 
would seem, perhaps only figuratively, to retort the charge of adultery 
against the partisans of Laurentius.— p. 992. At the close, Ennodius per- 
sonifies Rome, who has still some compunctious feelings for the inevitable 
damnation of all her older heroes. “ Que Curios, Torquatos, Camillos, quos 
Ecclesia non regeneravit, et reliquos misi, plurime prolis infoecunda mater, 
ad Tartarum, dum exhaustis emarcui male feeta visceribus; quia Fabios 
servata patria non redemit, Deciis multo sudore gloria parta nil preestitit: 
profligata est operum sine fide innocentia: criminosis junctus est, aqui 
observantissimus Scipio.’’ — p. 993, apud Sirmond. 

3 “ Sensimus auctas illationes, vos addita tributa nescitis. Ita uteumque 
sub admiratione perfectum est, ut et fiscus crescebat, et privata utilitas 
nulla damna perferret.’’ — Var. ii. 16. The panegyric of Ennodius must 
be read with that reserve which these eloquent adulations suggest; but, on 
the other hand, it must be remembered that Ennodius was a Catholic and 
a bishop. 


Cuap. III. AFFAIRS OF THE EAST. 423 


virtues of wisdom, justice, and humanity. His foreign 
wars in Pannonia, with a horde of the Bulgarian race, 
in Gaul, in defence of his kindred the Visigoths against 
the ambitious Franks, brought fame to the king, with- 
out disturbing the repose, or interrupting the progress 
of improvement in Italy. Far different was the state of 
the East; the long religious quarrel in which the Em- 
peror Anastasius had been engaged, had shaken its 
throne to the base, it needed only a successful insur- 
rection to degrade it to still lower humiliation. 

The Pope Symmachus watched no doubt with pro- 
found interest the holy war which had now broken out 
in the East. The polemic controversies had become the 
causes or pretexts of revolt and battles. The formid- 
able Scythian Vitalianus (with whom Theodoric had 
some political connection on account of the hostilities 
in which he had been involved on the Dacian frontier 
with the Eastern empire) had raised the standard of 
rebellion and of orthodoxy against the aged Anastasius. 
Symmachus did not live to witness the sad latter years 
of the Emperor Anastasius; the revolt of Vitalianus ; 
the hollow peace on the hard conditions of religious 
submission ; the full acceptance of the council of Chal- 
cedon, the restoration of the exiled Catholic Bishops, 
and the summoning an Cicumenic Council at Heraclea. 
His successor Hormisdas! reaped the fruits of the hu- 
miliation of the eastern Emperor, and be- pore por- 
came, though at first the vassal, at last the ™*** 
humble subject of the Arian Theodoric, the dictator of 
the religion of the world. Anastasius in his helpless 
state sought the mediation not of the civil but of the 
religious sovereign of Italy. He might justly fear 


1 Hormisdas, Pope from July, 514, to Aug. 6, 528. 


424 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IIL. 


a.v.509. 'Theodoric, himself had once some years be- 
fore entered into suspicious alliance with Clovis the 
Frank, he had meditated or threatened a descent on the 
coast of Italy. The Emperor addressed a letter to 
Hormisdas, the fame of whose mild disposition tempt- 
ed him to renew a correspondence broken off by the 
harshness of former Popes. But Hormisdas, while he 
warmly approved the Emperor’s disposition to peace 
and unity, declined this flattery at the expense of his 
predecessors. Yet, on the whole, the language of the 
Pope’s reply was moderate, neither dissembling nor as- 
serting in too haughty terms the pretensions of his See. 
The proposed Council of Heraclea came to nothing; a 
Council in the East, under present circumstances, suit- 
ed the policy neither of the Pope, nor of the Emperor.! 
July 8,515. Hour ambassadors, the Bishops Ennodius and 
Fortunatus, the Presbyter Venantius, with Vitalis a 
PapalEm- deacon, set forth in the name of Pope Hor- 
bassy to Con- 5 . ΝΣ τὸ 6 

stantinople. misdas to Constantinople. Their instructions 
are extant, a remarkable manual of ecclesiastical diplo- 
macy in a nice and difficult affair. In the question- 
able and divided state of the Eastern clergy, espe- 
cially of Constantinople, as to orthodoxy, the ambas- 
sadors were to receive their personal advances with 
decent courtesy, lest the episcopal character should be 
lowered in the estimation of the laity ; but to avoid all 
intimate intercourse with men, who might at least be 
heretics ; to receive no presents, not even provisions, 
only means of conveyance ; to incur no obligations, and 
to decline all invitations to feasts, until they could all 


1 The story in Theophanes as to the perfidy of Anastasius in these pro- 
ceedings, is altogether inconsistent with the whole course of events, as ap- 
pears from existing documents. 


ΠῚ 


Cuap. Ill. PAPAL EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 495 


meet together at the great feast of the Holy Eucharist. 
In Constantinople they were to go at once to the lodg- 
ings provided by the Emperor, but to avoid all inter- 
course with their own partisans, till they had presented 
their credentials to the Emperor.! Besides these cre- 
dentials they were armed with letters to Vitalianus, 
letters however so cautiously worded, that they might 
acknowledge the possession of them, and though stead- 
ily declining to surrender them to the Emperor, might 
permit them to be read to Vitalianus in the presence of 
an imperial commissioner. Their instructions, how 
they were to fix the wavering Emperor, and extort 
concession after concession, are marked with the same 
subtle and dexterous policy. They were to demand, 
I., his unequivocal assent to the Council of Chalce- 
don, and to the letters of Pope Leo. If he yielded 
this point, they were to express their gratitude and 
kiss his breast, and then, II., to require him to demand 
the same assent from all the clergy of the East. If 
he should assert the general orthodoxy of the clergy, 
and their disposition to quiet submission, if affairs had 
not been thrown into confusion by certain unadvised let- 
ters of Pope Symmachus, they were to declare that those 
letters, now in their hands, contained only general ex- 
hortations to accept the Council of Chalcedon. ἡ They 
were to press this point with prayers and tears, to re- 
mind the Emperor of God, and of the day of judgment. 
Should the Emperor reply, ‘“* What would you have? 


1 There was a preliminary caution that, as it was customary in Constan- 
tinople for all persons admitted to the emperor on ecclesiastical business to 
be presented by the bishop, they were to omit, if possible, receiving this 
courtesy from Timatheus, and if he should officiously thrust himself in the 
way, and enforce the right of presentation, to declare that they were di- 
rectly accredited to the emperor alone. 


420 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


I receive the Council of Chalcedon, and the letters of 
Leo:” they were to elude any assent to this protest, 
unless he would issue his imperial letters compelling a 
general union with the Church of Rome. Should the 
Emperor say, ‘‘ Will you then receive the Bishop of 
Constantinople into communion?” Here was the 
nicest point of all, to avoid the recognition of either of 
the contending prelates, and so to bring the absolute 
nomination of the Bishop of Constantinople under the 
cognizance of the proposed Council, over which Coun- 
cil was to preside the representative of Rome. The 
instructions even anticipate a dangerous objection, 
which might occur to Anastasius, that the rival prel- 
ate, Macedonius, was a notorious heretic. This, they 
were to rejoin, is a question to be calmly considered 
when the Church is restored to unity. ‘* What,” should 
the Emperor say, “is my city to be without a bishop?” 
“The canons,” they are to answer, “ provide remedies 
for such a difficulty.” But these inexorable terms were 
not all. Anastasius was not only to be compelled to be 
a persecutor. Besides the acceptance of the Council of 
Chalcedon, and the Leonine letters by the Emperor, 
and the compulsory enforcement of obedience from the 
clergy, were demanded from the Emperor, as to be rat- 
ified by the Council, III. The public anathema of Nes- 
torius, Eutyches, Dioscorus, and also of their followers, 
(the maintainers of the Henoticon,) Timotheus lu- 
rus, Peter of Alexandria, Acacius, formerly Bishop 
of Constantinople, and Peter of Antioch. IV. The 
immediate recall from exile of all ecclesiastics in com- 
munion with Rome, the causes of their respective ban- 
ishments to be examined by the Apostolic See. V. The 
judgment of those accused of persecuting the Catholics 


Onap. IIL. PROCEEDINGS OF ANASTASIUS. 427 


to be in like manner submitted to the court of Rome. 
On the full acceptance of these terms, Hormisdas con- 
sented to honor the future Council with his personal 
presence, not to deliberate but to ratify his own solemn 
determinations. 

But Anastasius was not reduced so low as to submit 
to these debasing conditions. The condemnation of 
Acacius was unpopular at Constantinople, the memory 
of the Bishop dear and sacred to a large party. Anas- 
tasius chose this point of resistance. He accepted on 
his own part the Council of Chalcedon, but why should 
the living be kept excommunicated from the Church on 
account of the dead? The terms of Hormisdas could 
not be enforced without much _ bloodshed.! a.v. 507. 
The embassy returned to Rome. Anastasius continued 
to temporize. An imperial embassy appeared in Rome, 
accredited to the Senate as well as to the Pope. It en- 
treated the intervention of that venerable body with 
the glorious Theodoric to unite the afflicted Christian 
Church and Empire. Hormisdas treated these lay am- 
bassadors, who presumed to interfere in ecclesiastical 
affairs, with supercilious contempt. The churches of 
Illyria, of which the opinions had as yet hung in doubt, 
had now given their unqualified adhesion to Hormisdas 
and the Council of Chalcedon. Far from retracting, 
he rose in his demands; he condescended indeed to 
send a second legation, Ennodius, Bishop of Pavia, and 
Peregrinus, Bishop of Misenum, to Constantinople. 
His answer by them was a vehement and implacable 
invective against the memory of Acacius.2_ That Bish- 


1 “Grave esse clementia nostra judicat de ecclesia venerabili propter 
mortuos vivos expelli, nec sine multa effusione sanguinis scimus posse ea, 
uz super hoe scribitis, ordinari.”’ — Epist. Anastas. Labbe, p. 1482. 

2 Epistola Hormisdz apud Labbe. 


428 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


op’s communion with the followers of Dioscorus and of 
Eutyches infected him with their most heinous guilt. 
All who hated those heretics, must hate Acacius. The 
crime of Acacius was darker than that of the original 
authors of the heresy. The condemnation of Acacius, 
the nnpardonable Acacius — Acacius who had claimed 
equality with the Pope —was now the only obstacle to 
the peace between Eastern and Western Christendom, 
a consummation to which the West, even the remotest 
Gaul (so wrote Hormisdas, alluding to the Catholic 
Franks) looked forward with eager interest. Anasta- 
sius was now more secure upon his throne, his formida- 
ble subject, Vitalianus, had lost his power. To his 
honor, he would not abandon even the memory of Aca- 
cius, who had been guilty only of firmly carrying out 
the Emperor’s scheme of toleration ; he broke off all 
further communication with the merciless Prelate. 
““We may submit to insult, we may endure that our 
decrees be annulled, but we will not be commanded.! 
Hormisdas must await the accession of a new Emperor 
Justin, before the Churches of Rome and Byzantium 
are reunited by the sacrifice of him, who besides his 
communion with Eutychians, had dared to equal him- 
self with the successor of St. Peter.” 

But with the age and decay of Anastasius the 
strength of the Chalcedonian party increased rapidly. 
Timotheus, the Bishop of Constantinople, gave hopes 
at least, that he would secure himself by timely conces- 
sion. Hormisdas addressed encouraging letters to the 
Catholic bishops, and though Anastasius ventured to 
punish with severity certain monks who strove to stir 
up rebellion, he dared not to resent this treasonable 

1 Epist. Anastas. Labbe, p. 1460. 


Crap. ΠΙ. ACCESSION OF JUSTIN. 429 


correspondence with his subjects. The monks in Syria, 
of that party, appealed from the Emperor, whom they 
accused of contemptuously rejecting their humble sup- 
plications for protection and redress against their rivals, 
charged with the massacre of their brethren in the 
church, to the representative of St. Peter and .St. 
Paul.! 

The strife ended with the death, if we are to believe 
Baronius, the damnation of Anastasius. The death 
of an old man, at least of eighty-one, more likely 
eighty-eight years of age, was ascribed to the visible 
vengeance of God. There was a terrible tempest, and 
that tempest transported away the affrighted soul of the 
Emperor, or struck him dead by its lightning. His 
death was revealed to a saint at a great distance, who 
communicated the awful fact to three of his brethren, 
intimating at the same time that he himself was sum- 
moned to appear before the tribunal of God within ten 
days, to bear witness against the Emperor.? This 
Elias departed before the end of ten days on his chari- 
table errand, so necessary to enlighten Omniscience as 
to the deeds of a mortal man. So deeply had the pas- 
sion of hatred, offering itself to the heart in the garb 
of religious zeal, infected the Christian mind, that Car- 
dinal Baronius, reviving the inexorable resentment 
which had slept for centuries, calls upon the Church to 
sing a hymn of rejoicing over this new Pharaoh, this 
Emperor, thus, for his resistance to the Pope, judged, 
damned, and thrust down into hell. 

Justin, a rude unlettered Dacian peasant, seized the 
throne of Constantinople; and there was an instan- 


1 Relatio Archimandrit. et Monach. ii. Syrie apud Labbe, 1461 
2 Baronius, sub ann. 518, with his authorities. 


480 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox I 


Accession of taneous religious revolution in the Byzantine 
July 9,518. court and city, and throughout the East. Jus- 
tin, though ignorant, was known to be of unbending 
orthodoxy. Only six days after his proclamation, the 
July 15. Emperor, with his wife Lupicina, who had 
been his slave and concubine, and who took the more 
decorous name of Euphemia, entered the great church. 
The populace broke out in acclamations, “ Long life 
to the new Constantine and the new Helena.” Their 
clamors ceased not with these loyal expressions: 
« Away with the Manicheans, proclaim the Council 
of Chalcedon.” They demanded the degradation of 
Severus of Antioch, immediate reconciliation with 
Rome, and even that the bones of the Manicheans (the 
Emperor Anastasius and his party) should be torn up 
from their sepulchres. John of Cappadocia, the Pa- 
triarch of Constantinople, a man of servile mind, 
though unmeasured ambition, had acquiesced without 
remonstrance in all the measures of Anastasius. He 
now ascended the pulpit, declared his adhesion to the 
four great Councils, especially that of Chalcedon. 
The populace summoned him to utter his anathema 
against Severus; the Prelate obeyed. The next day 
was celebrated a festival in honor of the Council of 
Chalcedon. John of Cappadocia hastily assembled a 
Council of forty bishops, which confirmed all the de- 
mands of the rabble; Justin ratified their decrees by 
an imperial edict, commanding the recall of all the 
exiled bishops, and the expulsion of those who had 
usurped their sees. A second edict disqualified all 
heretics from holding civil or military office. The 
whole East followed the example of the capital, and 
became orthodox with the orthodox Emperor. Hera- 


ὕπαρ. IIL. CLOSE OF THE SCHISM. 431 


clea, Nicea, Nicomedia, Gangra, Jerusalem, Ptolemais, 
Tyre, restored the Chalcedonian bishops. ¢iose of the 
Antioch shook off the yoke of Severus. *™™" 
Thessalonica and Alexandria alone made resistance, 
but were awed into submission. The death of the 
Eunuch Amantius, who had aspired to dispose of the 
empire, which he could not usurp himself; by whose 
gold, intrusted to him for other purposes, Justin had 
bought the crown; had been demanded as a sacrifice 
by the populace, and was readily conceded by Justin, 
his treason being aggravated by his notorious Mani- 
cheism. Theocritus, whom he had intended to raise to 
the empire, shared his unpopularity and his doom. But 
Vitalianus, the pillar of orthodoxy, met no better fate ; 
he was treacherously invited to Constantinople, pro- 
moted to the highest dignity, and in the seventh month 
of his consulate assassinated by the agents of Justin- 
ian, the Emperor’s nephew, now clearing the way for 
his own accession to the throne. Even before these 
necessary precautions for the security of his reign, the 
zealous Emperor had opened negotiations with Rome.! 
All opposition shrunk away. Hormisdas had the satis- 
faction not merely of compelling, by the aid of the 
Emperor, the whole East to accept his theologic doc- 
trines, but his anathemas also of the living and of the 
dead. At the demand of his legates, the names of 
Acacius, and all who communicated with him, those 
of the Emperors Zeno and Anastasius, were erased 
from the diptychs. John the Patriarch vainly strug- 
eled to save the blameless names of Euphemius and 
Macedonius from the same ignominy: they were in- 
eluded with the rest (they were severely orthodox, but 


1 The first letter of Justin was dated August 1; the second, September 7. 


432 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IIL. 


they had been guilty of acknowledging Acacius and 
his successor as legitimate patriarchs) ;1 yet, never- 
theless, the East has continued to reverence them as 
of undoubted orthodoxy. John however contrived a 
happy expedient to elude the direct recognition of the 
supremacy of Rome, by declaring that the Churches 
of old and new Rome were one. He assumed, by the 
Maren 28, permission of Justin, the yet pregnant title 
a-p.519. of ceeumenic Patriarch. So closed the schism 
which had lasted for thirty-five years. Latin and 
Greek Christianity held again one creed — East and 
West were at peace. 

Theodoric had stood aloof, whether in contemptuous 
Theodorie at. indifference, or, as he might suppose, intent 
prosperity. on nobler objects, from all these imtrigues, 
embassies, and negotiations. He left his subject, the 
Bishop of Rome, to assert, as he might, his ecclesiasti- 
cal superiority over Constantinople ; to league with the 
rebellious subjects of Byzantium against the eastern 
Emperor ; to treat with Justin almost as an indepen- 
dent sovereign. Theodoric was now at the height of 
his fame and power, his kingdom of its peace and felic- 
ity. His dominion extended without rival, without 
opposition, from the Alps to Calabria. His sovereignty 
extended over the ancient provinces of Noricum and 
Pannonia, and some large adjacent, if not distinctly 
bounded territories; over the whole south of France, 
and even parts of Spain. But not all the victories, not 
all the virtues, not the wisdom, justice, and moderation 
of Theodoric, nor the prosperity of Italy under his 
rule, could secure his repose, or enable him to close his 
reign without strife, injustice, persecution, and blood- 


1 Compare Walch, vii. p. 109. 


Crap. III. CATHOLICISM. 433 


shed. His firm character might overawe the elements 
of civil dissension, the jealousy of the two races which 
formed his subjects, and the feeble impatience of Rome 
under the barbarian sway. It was religious strife 
which broke up the quiet of his life and reign, and per- 
haps, by imbittering his temper in the decline of his 
days, by awakening suspicions not altogether ground- 
less, and fears not without warrant, led to the crimes 
which have so deeply sullied his memory, the death of 
Boethius and of Symmachus. Notwithstanding the 
natural repugnance of the Romans to a foreign sway, 
and the secret dissatisfaction with which the Emperor 
of the East must have beheld the West alto- Catholicism. 
gether severed from the Roman Empire, yet Theodoric 
the Goth might have lived and ruled, and transmitted 
his sceptre in peace to his posterity ; but an orthodox 
empire would not repose in unreluctant submission 
under an Arian. It was the unity of the Church, 
upon the accession of Justin; which endangered his 
government. Heresy, at the head of a prosperous 
kingdom, and a powerful fleet and army in the West, 
had commanded respect, so long as Eutychianism, or 
the no less odious compulsory toleration of the Henoti- 
con, sate on the throne of Constantinople. Catholi- 
cism had concentrated all its hatred on the Manicheans, 
as they were called, who refused the Council of Chal- 
cedon ; but no sooner were those dissensions healed, 
than it began to resent, to look with holy jealousy 
upon, and to burn with fiery zeal against the older 
heterodoxy ; it would no longer brook the equality of 
the detested Arians. 

The first aggression was confined to the East. Jus- 
tin in a terrible edict commanded all Mani- «.». 523 

VOL. I. 28 


484 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


cheans to leave the empire on pain of death; all other 
heretics, who were ranked with pagans and Jews, were 
incapacitated for all civil and military offices, excepting 
the Goths, and other foreign soldiers in the service of 
the empire.! The exception might seem intended to 
lull the jealousy of Theodoric ; yet the Arians of the 
East could not but see that this, hard measure as it 
was, was only the beginning of the persecution ; they 
looked to the Sovereign of Italy for protection, for the 
continued possession of that tacit exemption which they 
had long enjoyed, from the intolerant rigor in force 
against other heretics. It was precisely at this junct- 
ure that rumors were spread abroad of dangerous 
speeches — at least concerning their independence of 
the Gothic yoke, of the assertion of the liberties of 
Rome — having been ventured in the capital. Vague 
intelligence reached Ravenna, of an actual and wide- 
spread conspiracy which involved the whole Senate ; 
Rumors of Put of which Albinus, the most distinguished 
conspiracies. of the Roman patricians, was the head. In- 
dignation, not without apprehension, at this sudden, 
and, as it appeared, simultaneous movememt of hos- 
tility, seized the soul of Theodoric. The whole cir- 
cumstances of his position demand careful considera- 
tion. Nothing could be more unprovoked than the 
religious measures of Constantinople, as far as they 
menaced the West, or assailed the kindred of Theod- 
oric in the East or even those who held the same 
faith. His equity to his Catholic and Arian subjects 
was unimpeachable ; to the Pope he had always shown 
respectful deference ; he had taken no advantage of the 
contention for the Pontificate to promote his own 


1 Theophanes. Cedrenus in loc. 


Cua. LI. CATHOLICISM. 435 


tenets. Even as late as this very year, he AD. 528. 
had bestowed on the Church of St. Peter two reign 31. 
magnificent chandeliers of solid silver. But the Catho- 
lics resented, no doubt, the unshaken justice with which 
Theodoric had protected the Jews.! At Rome, at 
Milan, and at Genoa the Jews had been the Jews. 
attacked by the irrepressible hostility of the Catholics: 
their synagogues had been burned or destroyed, or 
their property unjustly seized. Theodoric compelled 
the restoration of the synagogues at the public expense. 
The Catholics had taken the pretext of the demolition 
of a small chapel dedicated to St. Stephen at Verona, 
probably for the fortification or embellishment of the 
city, as another indication of aggression on the part 
of Theodoric.2 These were slight but significant signs 
of the growing hostility. Nor was it in the East alone 
that Catholicism menaced the life of Arianism. The 
Council of Epaona, in Burgundian Gaul, at which 
bishops from the territories of Theodoric had met, 
had passed severe canons closing the churches of the 
Arians. 

Though Clovis was now dead, orthodoxy was still 
the battle-cry of the Franks; in all the Gothic king- 
doms the government might dread the prayers, if not 
the more active interference of the Catholic clergy on 
the side of their enemies. 

It was in connection with the bad feeling, which 
caused and was no doubt aggravated by the demolition 
of the chapel in Verona, that Theodoric took the 
strong measure of totally disarming the Roman popu- 


1 Hist. of the Jews, v. iii. p. 115. 
2 Gibbon supposes that Theodoriec may have been anathematized from 
the pulpit of that chapel. 


436 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


lation. He prohibited them from bearing any offensive 
weapons ; the only instrument permitted was a small 
knife, for the common purposes of life. 

No less doubtful and menacing was the aspect of 


Btate of civil affairs. The heir of Theodoric was a 
eodaoric’s 5 5 . . 
family. child. His gallant son-in-law Eutharis, the 


hopeful successor to his valor, his wisdom, as well as 
his religious opinions, was now dead. Notwithstanding 
all her virtues and her accomplishments, Amalasuntha, 
his only daughter, as a female could hardly cope with 
the difficulties of the times, sole guardian of a boy-king. 
Theodoric knew that the Emperor of the East in his 
pride, still considered the barbarian king as his vassal, 
as originally holding Italy by his grant, and so, no 
doubt, claimed the power of revoking that grant. The 
Goths might be safe from hostile aggression, so long as 
the aged Tustin who was sixty-eight years old, at ales 
accession, occupied the throne: but he could not be 
ignorant of the character, the unmeasured and un- 
scrupulous ambition, the unbending orthodoxy of Jus- 
tinian. Theodoric’s prophetic sagacity might well 
anticipate the events which in a few years would not 
merely endanger, but extinguish the Italian kingdom 
of the Goths. 

It was at this juncture, when the Emperor of the 
East might be at least suspected of designs, if he had 
not committed overt acts, in order to recover and 
reunite the severed empire; when he might seem to 
be enlisting all the religious and all the Roman sym- 
pathies of Theodoric’s subjects in a kind of initiatory 
treason, in a deep, if yet silent and inactive dissatisfac- 
tion, that these dark rumors began to spread of secret 
intelligence between the senate of Rome and the East. 


ὕπαρ. ΠΙ. BOETHIUS. 437 
Men, it is asserted by Boethius himself, of infamous 
character, yet who had held, and who afterwards held 
high offices of trust and honor, accused Albinus, the 
chief of the Senate, of disloyal correspondence with 
Constantinople. 

Albinus was the friend of Boethius. Boethius the 
senator, the patrician, the descendant and Boethius. 
head of the noble Anician family, who connected him- 
self with the old republic by the name of Manlius ; the 
philosopher, the theologian, the consummate master of 
all the arts and sciences known at that period —had ᾿ 
been raised to the highest civil honors ; not only had 
he himself received the ensigns of the Consulate, but 
the father had seen his two sons in the same year raised 
to that honor, which still maintained its traditionary 
grandeur in the Roman mind. On the day of their 
inauguration, Boethius, too, pronounced a panegyric 
on his munificent Gothic sovereign, and displayed his 
own magnificence by distributing a noble largess to the 
people at the games. In his public capacity Boethius 
had declared himself the protector of the Romans 
against sthe oppressions of Theodoric’s ministers. He 
had repressed the extortions of Cunegast, the more 
violent tyranny of Treguella, the chamberlain of The- 
odoric’s household — (these names betray their Gothic 
origin). By a dangerous exercise of his authority he 
had rescued many unfortunate persons from the rapac- 
ity of the barbarians; he had saved the fortunes of 
many other provincials from private exaction, and from 
unjust and inordinate taxation. He had opposed the 
‘Pretorian Prefect in certain measures, by which a 
famine in Campania would have been greatly aggra- 
vated ; on this act he had received the public approba 


438 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


tion of the King. He had plucked Paullinus, a man of 
senatorial rank, from the very jaws of those hounds of the 
palace, who had already in hope devoured his confiscat- 
ed estate. Such, according to Boethius himself, were 
his merits towards his own countrymen, the causes of 
the hostility towards him among the Gothic courtiers 
of Theodoric. And even under the rigid equity of The- 
odoric, such abuses might be almost inevitable in that 
form of society. Boethius hastened to Verona to con- 
front the accuser Cyprianus, the great referendary, when 
he heard the accusation of treason against Albinus,’ 


Charges and in the face of the Emperor declared, “ If 
agains 5 5 Oe 
Albinus. Albinus is criminal, I and the whole Senate 


are equally guilty.” The generous boldness of Boe- 
thius awoke no admiration or sympathy in the heart 
of Theodoric. Instead of saving his friend, Boethius 
was involved in his ruin. Three persons, one of whom 
Basilius (according to Boethius) had been dismissed 
ignominiously from the royal service, and whom poy- 
erty drove to any crime; two others, Opilio and Gau- 
dentius, who had been exiled, had taken refuge in the 
sanctuary of a church, and had been threatened if they 
should not leave Ravenna in a certain number of days, 
with branding in the forehead, were admitted as wit- 
nesses against Boethius. He was accused of more than 
hoping for the freedom of Rome. His signature, 
forged as he declared, was shown at the foot of an 
address, inviting the Emperor of the East to reconquer 
Italy.2 Boethius was refused permission to examine 

1 Gibbon says that Albinus was only accused of hoping the liberty of 
Rome. The Anonym. Vales. declares the charge to have been of treason- 
able correspondence with the Kast. 


2 The specific charges against Boethius were, that he had endeavored to 
maintain inviolate the authority of the senate; that he had prevented an 


Cuapr. III. CORRESPONDENCE OF EAST AND WEST. 439 


the informers. He admits the latent, but glorious 
treason of his heart. ‘* Had there been any hopes of 
liberty, I should have freely indulged them. Had I 
known of a conspiracy against the King, I should have 
answered in the words of a noble Roman to the frantic 
Caligula, you would not have known it from me.” 
The King, now, in the words of Boethius, eager to 
involve the whole Senate in one common ruin,! con- 
demned Boethius to imprisonment. He was incar- 
cerated in Calvenzano, a castle between Milan and 
Pavia.” 

In the mean time the religious affairs of the East 
became more threatening to the kinsmen, and to those 
who held the same religious creed with Theodoric. 
The correspondence between the monarchs og .re<pona- 
had produced no effect. Theodoric had writ- 9pe¢ Petree 
ten in these words to Justin: — “ΤῸ pretend Wt 
to a dominion over the conscience, is to usurp the pre- 
rogative of God; by the nature of things the power of 
sovereigns is pains to political government ; they 
have no right of punishment but over those who dis- 
turb the πὸ peace;® the most dangerous heresy is 
that of a sovereign who separates himself from part 
of his subjects, because they believe not according to 
his belief.”’ Golden words! but mistimed above twelve 
hundred years. 
informer from forwarding certain documents inculpating the senate to the 
king; that he had been privy and assenting to an address from the senate 
to the Emperor of the East. 

1 Avidus communis exitii. 

2 The narrative of these events is perplexed by making, as many writers 
(following the Anonym. Vales.) have done, the death of Boethius immedi- 
ately consequent upon his imprisonment. But he had time during that im 


nrisonment to write the De Consolat. Philosophiz. 
8 Cassiod. ii. 6, iii. 28. 


440 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox ΠΙ:- 


Justin coolly answered, that he pretended to no 
authority over men’s consciences, but it was his pre- 
rogative to intrust the public offices to those in whom 
he had confidence; and public order demanding uni- 
formity of worship, he had full right to command the 
churches to be open to those alone who should conform 
to the religion of the state. The Arians of the East 
were thus stripped of all offices of honor or emolu- 
ment, were not only expelled from the Catholic 
churches, but their own were closed against them, and 
they were exposed to all the insults, vexations, and per- 
secutions of their adversaries, who were not likely to 
enjoy their triumph with moderation, or to repress 
their conscientiously intolerant zeal. Great numbers 
who held but loosely to their faith, conformed to the 
state religion ; the more sincere appealed in the strong- 
est terms to the protection of Theodoric. The King 
of Italy at first maintained something of his usual 
calm moderation; he declined all retaliation, to which 
he had been incessantly urged, on the orthodox of the 
Theodore 4 West. + He determined on an embassy to 
sends Pope Constantinople to enforce upon the Eastern 
stantinople- Emperor the wisdom of mutual toleration ; 
the ambassador whom he selected for this mission of 
peace was the Pope himself, not the vigorous Hormis- 
das, but John the Ist. who had quietly succeeded to the 
See of Rome on the death of that Prelate! This 
extraordinary measure shows either an overweening 
reliance in Theodoric on his own power, or a confidence 
magnanimous, but equally unaccountable, a confidence 
bordering on simplicity, that for his own uninterrupted 
exercise of justice, humanity, and moderation he had a 


1 John, Pope, August 18, A.D. 528. 


(nar. III. THEODORIC AND THE POPE. 441 


right to expect the return of fidelity and gratitude. 
Could he fondly suppose that the loyalty of the Pope 
would be proof against the blandishments of the 
Eastern court, that the Bishop of Rome would be 
zealous in a cause so directly at issue with his own 
principles? The Pope summoned to Ravenna, was 
instructed to demand of Justin the reopening of their 
churches to the Arians, perfect toleration, and the 
restoration to their former faith of those who on com- 
pulsion had conformed to the Catholic religion.1 To 
the Pope’s remonstrances and attempts to limit his 
mediatorial office, to points less unsuited to his character, 
Theodoric angrily replied, by commanding the envoys 
instantly to embark on the vessels which were ready 
for the voyage.?, The Pope, attended by five other 
bishops and four senators, set forth on a mission of 
which it was the ostensible object to obtain indulgence 
for heretics, heretics under the ban of his Church, here- 
tics looked upon with the most profound detestation. 
Hitherto the Pope had remained in his unmoved 
and stately dignity within his own city. Excepting in 
the case of the exiled Liberius, he had hardly ventured 
further than the court of Ravenna, or on such a service 
as that of Leo to the camp of Attila. The Pope had 
not even attended any of the great Councils. Aware, 
asit might almost seem, that much of the awe which 
attached to his office, arose from the seat of his author- 
ity, he had but rarely departed from the chair of St. 
Peter ; and but recently Hormisdas had demanded the 
unconditional submission of the Emperor of Constanti- 


1 This seems the meaning of the sentence in the Anonym. Vales. “ut 
reconciliatos hzreticos in catholica restituat religione.’’ — p. 626. 
2 Their names in the Anonym. Vales. 


442 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


nople to his decrees, as the price of his promised con- 
descension to appear at a Council in that city. 

The Pope was received in Constantinople with the 
Pope John in most flattering honors, as though he had been 
Constantino- 
ple. St. Peter ἘΞ The τς ἰδ city, with the 
Emperor at its head, came forth to meet him with 
tapers and torches, as far as ten miles beyond the 
gates. The Emperor knelt at his feet and implored his 
March 30,525. benediction. On Easter day he performed 
the service in the great Church, Epiphanius the Bish- 
op ceding the first place to the more holy stranger. 
It was hinted in the West that the Pope had placed 
the crown on the head of Justin. But of the course and 
the success of his negotiations all is utterly confused 
and contradictory. By one account, now abandoned 
as a later forgery, he boldly confirmed the Emperor in 
the rejection of all concessions, and himself consecrated 
all the Arian Churches for Catholic worship.! By 
another, he was so far faithful to his mission, as to 
obtain liberty of worship, and the restitution of their 
Churches to the Arians. The Emperor refused only 
the restoration of those Arians who had embraced the 
Catholic faith.2 All that is certainly known is, that 
John the Pope on his return was received as a traitor 
ls by Theodoric, thrown into prison, and there 
death of the highest ecclesiastic of the West lan- 
May 18, 526. ἘΠ ἘΠ for nearly a year, and died. But be- 
fore his return, the deep and ‘wide spread conspiracy, 
which Theodoric had discovered, or supposed that 
he had discovered, led to the death of a far greater 


1 Baronius rested this on a supposititious letter of Isidorus Mercator; 
this letter is exploded by Pagi, sub ann. 526. 
2 Anonym. Vales. p. 627. Histor. Miscell. apud Muratori. 


Cuap. III. BOETHIUS. 443 


man, Boethius, and subsequently to that of the vir- 
tuous father-in-law of Boethius, the Senator Sym- 
machus. Boethius had lightened the hours in his 
dreary confinement by the composition of his Boethius’s 

famous book, the Consolation of Philosophy, Saree 
the closing work of Roman literature. Intellectually, 
Boethius was the last of the Romans, and Roman 
letters may be said to have expired with greater 
dignity in his person, than the Empire in that of 
Augustulus. His own age might justly wonder at 
the universal accomplishments of Boethius. Theodoric 
himself, writing by the hand, and no doubt in the pe- 
dantic language of his minister Cassiodorus, had paid 
homage to his knowledge. ‘‘ Through him Pythagoras 
the musician, Ptolemy the astronomer, Nicomachus 
the arithmetician, Euclid the geometer, Plato the theo- 
logian, Aristotle the logician, Archimedes the mechani- 
cian, had learned to speak the Roman language.” Boe- 
thius had mingled in theologic controversy, had dis- 
cussed the mysterious question of the Trinity without 
any suspicion of heresy, and steered safely along the 
narrow strait between Nestorianism and Eutychianism. 
He is even said, for a time, to have withdrawn to the 
monastic solitudes, and to have held religious inter- 
course with Benedict of Nursia, and his followers. 
All this constitutes the extraordinary, the peculiar 
character of the Consolation of Philosophy, which 
appears as the last work οἵ. Roman letters, rather than 
as eminent among Christian writings. It is equally 
surprising that in such an age and by such a man, in 
his imprisonment and under the terrors of approaching 
death, Consolation should be found in Philosophy 
rather than in Religion; that he should have sought 


444 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IIL. 


his examples of patience in Socrates with his hemlock 
cup, or among the arguments of the Garden or the 
Porch, rather than in the Gospel or the Legends of 
Christian martyrdom. From the beginning of the 
book to the end, there is nothing distinctly Christian ; 
its religion is no higher than Theism; almost the 
whole might have been written by Cicero in exile, or 
by Marcus Antoninus under some reverse of fortune. 
The long and enduring popularity of the Consolation 
of Philosophy during the dark ages completes the 
singular and anomalous character of the work itself. 

This all-accomplished, all-honored man was not only 
Death of torn away from his library, inlaid with ivory 
Boethius. and glass, from the enjoyment of ample 
wealth and as ample honor, from the esteem of his 
friends and the love of his family, left to pine in a re- 
mote and lonely prison, and then released by the pub- 
lic executioner —the manner of his death, if we are 
to trust our authorities, was peculiarly inhuman. He 
was first tortured, a cord was tightly twisted round his 
forehead, whether or not to extort confession of his 
suspected treason; and he was then beaten to death 
with a club.! 

Nor was the vengeance of Theodoric satiated with 
the blood of Boethius. Theodoric, dreading the in- 
fluence of Symmachus, the head of the Senate, a man 
of the highest virtues; and suspecting, lest, in his im- 
symmachus. dignation at the death of his son-in-law, he 
should engage or had engaged in some desperate plot 
against the Gothic kingdom, summoned him to Ra- 
May 18,526. venna, where his head was struck off by the 
executioner.2 This was followed by the imprisonment 


1 Anonym. Vales. p. 626. 2 Anonym. Vales. p. 627. 


Crap. III. VENGEANCE OF THEODORIC. 445 


of Pope John, and his death. Throughout these mel- 
ancholy scenes, the historian is reduced to a sad alter- 
native. He must either suppose that the clear intellect 
and generous character of Theodoric had become en- 
feebled by age; his temper soured by the sudden and 
harassing anxieties, which seemed to break so unsea- 
sonably on the peace of his declining years, and the in- 
gratitude of his Roman subjects for above thirty years 
of mild and equitable rule; those subjects now would 
scarcely await his death to attempt to throw off the 
yoke, and would inevitably league with the East against 
his infant heir. Theodoric, therefore, blinded by un- 
worthy suspicions, yielded himself up to the basest 
informers, and closed a reign of justice and humanity, 
with a succession of acts, cruel, sanguinary, and wan- 
tonly revengeful. Or, on the other hand, he must con- 
clude, that notwithstanding his protestations of inno- 
cence, Boethius and his friends, dazzled by patriotic 
visions of the restoration of the Roman power, or, 
what is less likely, considering the philosophic tone of 
his religion, by orthodox zeal, had tampered at least 
with the enemies of the existing government; and that 
the Roman Senate looked forward in more than quiet 
prophetic hope, in actual traitorous correspondence, to 
that invasion from the East, which took place not many 
years after the death of Theodoric. Both views are 
perhaps true. Theodoric was a father, a Goth. Kings 
discriminate not between the aspirations of their sub- 
jects for revolt, and actual plans for revolt; they are 
bound to be far-sighted; their vision becomes more 
jealously acute, the more remote and indistinct the 
objects ; treason in men’s hearts becomes treason in 
act. On the other hand, insolent Roman vanity, stern 


440 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


religious zeal, were not likely to be coldly, timorously 
prudent; desires, hopes would find words ; words eager 
hearers, hearers become informers; and informers are 
not too faithful reporters. Goths, Arians, courtiers, 
might, even with no dishonest or sinister intent, hear 
conspiracy in every boast of Roman freedom, in every 
reminiscence of Roman pride. 

Theodoric was now in his 74th year; almost the last 
act of his reign was the nomination of the successor 
of John. His interposition was enforced by the fierce 
contentions which followed the death of that prelate. 
His choice fell on Felix, a Samnite, a learned and a 
blameless man. But the clergy and the people, who 
were agitated with strife, threatening the 
peace of the city, and a renewal of the 
bloody scenes at the election of Laurentius 
and Symmachus, united in stern resistance to the nom- 
ination, in which they had been allowed no voice.} 
Theodoric in his calm wisdom came to an agreement 
to regulate future elections —an agreement, which in 
theory subsisted, till the election of the Pope was 
transferred to the College of Cardinals. The Pope 
was to be chosen by the free suffrages of the clergy 
and people, but might not assume his office till con- 
firmed by the sovereign. For his confirmation the 
Pope made a certain payment to be distributed among 
the poor. On this understanding the clergy and the 
city acquiesced in the nomination of Pope Felix.” 


Pope Felix, 
A.D. 526. 
Consecrated 
July 12. 


1 Cassiod. Var. viii. 15. This nomination was absolute. Athalaric 
writes thus: ‘‘Oportebat enim arbitrio boni principis (Theodorici) obediri, 
qui sapienti deliberatione pertractans, quamvis in aliend religione, talem 
visus est pontificem delegisse, ut nulli merito debeat displicere. . . . 
Recepistis itaque virum, et divina gratiaé probabiliter institutum, et regali 
examinatione laudatum.”’ 

2 He took quiet possession of the throne July 12, 526. 


Crap. III. DEATH OF THEODORIC. 447 


Theodoric died in the month following the peaceful 
accession of Felix to the Pontifical throne. pDeatn of 
Theodorie 
The glory of his reign passed from the mem- Aug. 526. 
ory of man with the peace and prosperity of Italy. 
But the hatred of his heretical opinions survived the 
remembrance of his virtues. He is said to have com- 
mitted to a Jew, named Symmachus Scolasticus, the 
framing of an edict, for the expulsion of the Catholics 
from all their churches ;! a statement utterly irrecon- 
cilable with his judicious and conciliatory conduct on 
the election of the Pope. Theodoric, it was observed, 
died by the same disease which smote the heresiarch 
Arius in the hour of his triumph. The Greek histo- 
rian of the Gothic war, who may be taken as repre- 
senting the Byzantine aversion to the memory of The- 
odoric, has described him as dying in a terrific agony of 
remorse at his own crimes. A large fish was placed 
before Theodoric at his supper. The King sate atter 
beheld in it the gory head of Symmachus, ΔΒ: 
with the teeth set and gnawing the lower lip, and the 
eyes rolling in a fierce frenzy, and sternly menacing his 
murderer. Theodoric, shivering with cold, rushed to 
his chamber ; he called for more clothes to be heaped 
upon his bed, but nothing could restore the warmth of 
life; he sent for his physician, and bitterly, and in an 
agony of tears, reproached himself with the death of 
Symmachus and of Boethius.! He died a few days 
after; and even Procopius adds, that these were the 
first and the last acts of injustice committed by The- 
odoric against his subjects. But later visionaries did 
not the less pursue his soul to its eternal condemnation; 


1 Anonym. Vales.; Agnell. in Vit. Pontefic. Ravennat 
2 Procop. de bello Gothico, i. pp. 11, 12. 


448 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


he was seen by a hermit hurled by the ministers of the 
divine retribution into the volcano of Lipari: volcanoes 
in those days were believed to be the openings to hell.! 

Ravenna still, among the later works of Justinian 
and the Byzantine Exarchs, preserves some memorials 
of the magnificence of Theodoric. Of his stately pal- 
ace remain but some crumbling and disfigured walls. 
Byzantine art has taken possession of his churches ; 
Justinian and Theodora still dimly blaze in the gold 
and purple of the mosaics.2— The monument of The- 
odoric, perhaps the oldest work of Christian art, is still 
entire, marking some tendency to that transition from 
the Roman grandeur of bold and massy arches to the 
multiplicity of medieval details. Yet in these remains 
nothing can be traced which realizes those singular ex- 
pressions of Cassiodorus, so prophetic it might seem of 
what was afterwards characteristic of the so-called 
Gothic architecture —the tall, slender, reed-like pil- 
lars, the lofty roof supported, as it were, by clustered 
lances.® 


1 Gregor. i. Dialog. iv. 36. On this work, see hereafter. 

2 If we may trust a passage in Agnelli (Vit. Pontefic. Ravenn. apud Mu- 
ratori, iii. p. 95), the church of San Vitale, erected in a city the capital of 
an Arian sovereign, was unequalled in its splendor, we presume in the 
West. It cost 26,000 golden solidi. Taking the golden solidus (accordine 
to Dureau de la Malle, Economie Polit. des Romains, i. p. 46) at 15 franes 
10 c., about 12s. 6d., between £15,000 and £16,000. 

3 “ Quid dicimus columnarum junceam proceritatem. . . . Erectis hastil- 
ibus contineri moles illas sublimissimas fabricarum.’’ — Cassiod. viii. 15. 


Cnap. IV. EMPIRE OF JUSTINIAN. 449 


CHAPTER IV. 
JUSTINIAN. 


History scarcely offers a more extraordinary con- 
trast than that between the reign and the character of 
the Emperor Justinian. Under the nephew, colleague, 
and heir of J ustin, the Roman Empire ap- Empire of 
pears suddenly to resume her ancient majesty 4.v. 627. 
and power. The signs of a just, able, and vigorous 
administration, internal peace, prosperity, conquest, and 
splendor surround the master of the Roman world. 
The greatest generals, since the days perhaps of Tra- 
jan, Belisarius and Narses appear at the head of the 
Roman armies. Persia is kept at bay, during several 
campaigns if not continuously successful, yet honorable 
to the arms of Rome. The tide of barbarian conquest 
is rolled back. Africa, the Illyrian and Dalmatian prov- 
inces, Sicily, Italy, with the ancient Capital, are again 
under the empire of Rome; the Vandal kingdom, the 
Gothic kingdom fall before the irresistible generals of 
the East. The frontiers of the empire are defended 
with fortifications, constructed at enormous cost;! but 
become necessary now that Roman valor had lost its 
spell of awe over the human mind ; and that the per- 
petual migrations and movements from the North and 


1 Procopius de Adificiis, passim. The first book describes the ecclesias- 
tical buildings of Constantinople; the rest the fortifications and defensive 
buildings throughout the empire. 


VOL. I. 29 


450 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


the East were continually propelling new and formidable 
nations against the boundaries of the Roman world. 
Justinian aspires to be the legislator of mankind ; » vast 
system of jurisprudence embodies the wisdom of an- 
cient and of imperial statutes, mingled with some of 
the benign influences of Christianity, of which the 
author might almost have been warranted in the pre- 
sumptuous vaticination, that it would exercise an unre- 
pealed authority to the latest ages. The cities of the 
empire are adorned with buildings, civil as well as relig- 
ious, of great magnificence and apparent durability, 
which, with the comprehensive legislation, might recall 
the peaceful days of the Antonines. The empire, at 
least at first, is restored to religious unity: Catholicism 
resumes its sway, and Arianism, so long its rival, dies 
out in remote and neglected congregations. In Spain | 
alone it is the religion of the sovereign. 

The creator of this new epoch in Roman greatness, 
at least he who filled the throne during its creation, the 
Emperor Justinian, unites in himself the most opposite 
vices, — insatiable rapacity and lavish prodigality, in- 
tense pride and contemptible weakness, unmeasured 
ambition and dastardly cowardice. He is the uxorious 
slave of his empress, whom, after she had ministered 
to the licentious pleasures of the populace as a courte- 
san, and asan actress, in the most immodest exhibitions 
(we make due allowance for the malicious exaggera- 
tions in the secret history of Procopius), in defiance of 
decency, of honor, of the remonstrances of his friends, 
and of religion, he had made the partner of his throne. 
In the Christian Emperor seem to meet the crimes of 
those, who won or secured their empire by the assassi- 
nation of all whom they feared, the passion for public 


* 


Cuap. IV. THE EMPRESS THEODORA. 451 


diversions without the accomplishments of Nero or the 
brute strength of Commodus, the dotage of Claudius. 
Constantinople might appear to retrograde to paganism. 
The peace of the city and even the stability of the em- 
pire are endangered not by foreign invasion, not at first 
by a dangerous rival for the throne, nor even by relig- 
ious dissensions, but by the factions of the Circus, the 
partisans of the Blue and of the Green, by the colors 
worn in the games by the contending charioteers. Jus- 
tinian himself, during the memorable sedition, the Nike, 
had nearly abandoned the throne, and fled before a des- 
picable antagonist. ‘The throne is a glorious sepul- 
chre,” exclaimed the prostitute whom he had raised to 
that throne, and Justinian and the empire are saved by 
her courage. This imperious woman, even if from ex- 
haustion or lassitude she discontinued, or at least con- 
descended to disguise those vices which dishonored her 
husband, in her cruelties knew no restraint. And these 
cruelties, exercised in order to gratify her rapacity, if 
not in sheer caprice, as a substitute for that excitement 
which had lost its keenness and its zest, are almost more 
culpable indications of the Emperor’s weakness. ‘This 
meanness of subservience to female influence becomes 
the habit of the court, and the great Belisarius, like his 
master, is ruled and disgraced by an insolent and profli- 
gate wife. Nor do either of them, in shame, or in con- 
scious want of Christian holiness, stand aloof from the 
affairs of that religion, whose precepts and whose spirit 
they thus trample under foot. Theodora, a bigot with- 
out faith, a heretic, it might almost be presumed, with- 
out religious convictions, by the superior strength of 
her character, domineers in this as in other respects 
over the whole court, mingles in all religious intrigues, 


" 


452 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox 1Π. 


appoints to the highest ecclesiastical dignities, sells the 
Papacy itself. Her charities alone (if we except her 
masculine courage, and no doubt that great ability 
which mastered the inferior mind of her husband), if 
they sprung from lingering womanly tenderness, or that 
inextinguishable kindness which Christianity sometimes 
infuses into the hardest hearts, if they were not de- 
signed as a deliberate compromise with heaven for her 
vices and cruelties, may demand our admiration. The 
feeling which induced the degraded and miserable vic- 
tim of the lusts and contempt of men to found, per- 
haps, the first penitentiaries for her sisters in that 
wretched class, as it shows her superior to the base fear 
of awakening remembrances of her own former shame, 
may likewise be considered as an enforced homage to 
female virtue. Even in Theodora we would discover 
the very feeblest emotions of Christianity. Justinian 
aspires too to be the legislator not of the empire alone,’ 
but of Christendom, enacts ordinances for the whole 
Church ; and unhappily, not content with establishing 
the doctrines of Nicea and Chalcedon as the religion of 
the Empire, by his three Chapters replunges Christen- 
dom into religious strife. 

The reign of Justinian, during the period between 
the death of Theodoric and the conquest of Italy, was 
Persian ana Occupied by the Persian and African wars, 
er and the commotions arising out of the public 
4p. 626-583- oames in Constantinople. The only event 
which commands religious interest is the suppression of 
the schools in Athens. That last vain struggle of 


i T have studied, besides the ordinary authorities, a life of Justinian by 
Ludewig. — Hal. Salic. 1731. To the great lawyer the vices and weak- 
nesses of Justinian are lost in admiration of his jurisprudence. 


στὰς. 


pap. IV. SUPPRESSION OF SCHOOLS AT ATHENS. 4053 


Grecian philosophy against Christianity, which had so 
signally failed even with an Emperor Julian at its head ; 
that Platonic theism which had endeavored to give new 
life to paganism, by enlisting the imagination in its ser- 
vice, and establishing a sensible communication with 
the unseen world; which, in order to command the in- 
nate superstition of mankind, had allied itself with mag- 
ic; and which still (its better function) promulgated 
noble precepts of somewhat dreamy morality ; suppression 
was not allowed to expire like a worn-out vet- None. i, 
eran in peaceful dignity. It was forcibly expelled from 
the ancient groves and porches of Athens, where re- 
cently, under Proclus, it had rallied, as it were, for a 
last gleam of lustre; it was driven out by the impa- 
tient zeal of Justinian. Seven followers of Proclus, it is 
well known, sought a more hospitable retreat in Persia ; 
but the Magianism of that kingdom was not much more 
tolerant than the Christianity of the East. Philosophy 
found no resting-place ; and probably few of her disci- 
ples could enjoy the malicious consolation which might 
have been drawn from the manner in which she had 
long been revenging herself on Christianity by sug- 
gesting, quickening with her contentious spirit, and aid- 
ing with all her subtleties of language those disputes, 
which had degraded the faith of Jesus from its sublime, 
moral, and religious dictatorship over the human mind. 
Justinian, when he determined to attempt the recon- 
quest of Africa, might take the high position of the 
vindicator of the Catholics from long, cruel, and almost 
unrelenting persecution. The African Catholics had 
enjoyed a short gleam of peace during the reign of 
Hilderic, who had deviated into toleration, unknown to 
the Arianism of the Vandals alone; he had restored 


454 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


about two hundred bishops to their churches. The 
Catholics might behold with terror the overthrow of 
the just Hilderic by the stern Gilimer, and might rea- 
sonably dread a renewal of the dark days of the great 
persecutors, of Thrasimund and of Hunneric. The 
voices of those confessors, who are said to have spoken 
clearly and distinctly after their tongues had been cut 
out down to the root; who might be heard to speak 
publicly (for one of them was a deacon) by the curious 
or the devout in Constantinople itself, might excite the 
compassion and animate the zeal of Justinian.’ The 


1 This is the one post-apostolic miracle which appears to rest on the strong- 
est evidence. If we are to trust Victor Vitensis, we cannot take refuge in 
the notion that their speech was imperfect. Of one at least, the Deacon 
Reparatus, he asserts that he spoke both clearly and distinctly. The words 
of Procopius are ἀκραιφνεῖ τῇ φωνῇ. If we listen to Aneas of Gaza, it is 
equally impossible to recur to the haste, or slovenly execution of the punish- 
ment by the barbarian executioner: he states, from his own ocular inspec- 
tion, that the tongue had been torn away by the roots. — Victor Vitens. v. 
6; Ruinart, p. 483, 487; Aineas Gazensis in Theophrasto in Biblioth. Patr. 
viii. p. 664, 665; Justinian, codex i. tit. xxvii.; Marcelli in Chronic. Pro- 
cop. de Bell. Vandal. i. 7, p. 885; Gregor. Magn. Dialog. 111. 82. The 
question is, the credibility of such witnesses in such an age. A recent 
traveller has furnished a curious illustration of this one post-apostolic mira- 
cle which puzzled Gibbon. The writer is describing Djezzar Pasha’s cruel- 
ties: —‘‘ Each Emir was held down in a squatting position, with his hands 
tied behind him, and his face turned upwards. The officiating tef¢ketchy 
now approached his victim; an@ standing over him, as if about to extract a 
tooth, forced open his mouth, and, darting a hook through the top of the 
tongue, pulled it out until the root was exposed: one or two passes of a 
razor sufficed to cut it out. It is a curious fact, however, that the tongues 
grew again sufficient for the purposes of speech.’’—Colonel Churchill’s 
Lebanon, vol. iii. p. 8384. <A friend has suggested this more extraordinary 
passage: —‘‘ Zal Khan (condemned by Aga Mohammed Khan to lose his 
eyes) loaded the tyrant with curses. ‘Cut out his tongue’ was the second 
order. This mandate was imperfectly executed; and the loss of half this 
member deprived him of speech. Being afterwards persuaded that its 
being cut close to the root would enable him to speak so as to be under- 
stood, he submitted to the operation, and the effect has been, that his voice, 
though indistinct and thick, is yet intelligible to persons accustomed 
to converse with him. This 1 experienced from daily intercourse. He 


Guar. IV. CONQUEST OF AFRICA. 455 


frugal John of Cappadocia, the minister of Justinian, 
remonstrated against an expedition so costly and so un- 
certain in its event as the invasion of Africa. His appre- 
hensions seemed justified by the disastrous and ignomin- 
ious failure of that under Basiliscus. But John was 
silenced by a devout bishop. The holy man had seen 
a vision, which commanded the Catholic Emperor to 
proceed without fear to the rescue of his Catholic 
brethren. Africa, subdued by the arms of Belisarius, 
returned at once under the dominion of the Codquntee 
empire and of Catholicism. The Vandal Af 
Arianism had made no proselytes among the hereditary 
disciples of Cyprian and Augustine, the hearers of Ful- 
gentius and of Augustine’s scholars. Persecution had 
its usual effect when it stops short of extermination ; it 
had only strengthened the inflexible orthodoxy of the 
province. One imperial edict was sufficient a.. 533. 

to restore all the churches to the Catholic worship. 
Donatism, which still survived, though included under 
often spoke to me of his sufferings... . Sir John Malcolm adds, that 
he is “ignorant of anatomy, . . . but the facts are as stated, and I had 
them from the very best authority, old Zal Khan himself.’’ — Sketches of 
Persia, ii. p. 116. This mutilation, in fact, is common in the East. I have 
the authority of Sir John Macneill, ‘‘ that he knew several persons who had 
been subjected to that punishment, who spoke so intelligibly as to be able 
to transact business. More than one of them, finding that my curiosity and 
interest was excited, showed me the stump.”’ Sir John Macneill’s description 
of the mode of operation fully coincides with the following opinion of the 
most distinguished surgical authority in England: —‘“‘ There seems to me 
nothing mysterious in the histories of the excision of the tongue. The mod- 
ification of the voice forming articulate speech is effected especially by the 
motions of the soft palate, the tongue, and the lips, and partly by means of 
the teeth and cheeks. The mutilation of any one of these organs will affect 
the speech as far as that organ is concerned and no farther, the effect being 
to render the speech more or less imperfect, but not to destroy it altogether. 
The excision of the whole tongue is an impossible operation.’”” What 


Colonel Churchill attributed to the growth of the tongue is explained in 
another manner. 


456 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


the same condemnation, was endowed with more obsti- 
nate vitality, and was hardly extinguished before the 
final disruption of Africa from the great Christian sys- 
tem by Mohammedanism. 

The Ostrogothic kingdom of Theodoric, in the 
mean time, was declining through internal dissension ; 
the inevitable consequence of female sway, and that of 
a king too early raised to the throne, too soon eman- 
cipated from his mother’s control by the mistaken 
fondness of the Goths, who, while they desired to 
educate him as a warlike Amala among his 
noble peers, abandoned him to the unchecked 
corruption of Roman manners. Rome conquered 
Athalaric by her vices. Premature debauchery wasted 
Death of the bodily frame, and paralyzed the intellect 
Athalarie- of the young Gothic king. Even the all- 
accomplished Amalasuntha, who spoke the languages 
of all her subjects with the most exquisite perfection, 
and, in some degree, blended the virtues of both races, 
yet wanted somewhat of the commanding strength of 
character which hallowed the noble Teutonic female. 
In an evil hour, while her son was sinking towards the 
Marriage ana grave, she bestowed her hand and the king- 
death of Ἂ 
Amalasuntha.dom on her cousin, the unworthy 'Theodo- 
tus. Theodotus, master of the crown, imprisoned 
Amalasuntha, and soon put her to death. He then 
Witiges dragged out a few years of inglorious soy- 
a ereignty, till the indignant Goths wrested 
away the sceptre to place it in the hands of the valiant 
Witiges. 

Justinian watched the affairs of Italy without be- 
traying his ambitious designs ; but all who were dissat- 
isfied with the state of affairs, turned their eyes to the 


Ostrogothic 
kingdom. 


Cuar. IV. BONIFACE IL. 457 


East. Amalasuntha at one time had determined to 
abandon the kingdom, to place herself under the pro- 
tection of Justinian: the fleet was ready to sail to 
Dyrrachium. Constant amicable intercourse was still 
taking place between the Catholic clergy of the East 
and West, between Constantinople and Rome, between 
Justinian and the rapid succession of Pontiffs, who 
occupied the throne during the ten years between the 
death of Theodoric and the invasion of Italy. 

Felix IV. had just been acknowledged as Pope 
when Theodoric died ; his peaceful pontificate Pope Felix 
lasted four years. The contests for the Pa- 526-530. 
pacy were not prevented by the agreement under 
Theodoric. A double election took place on the death 
of Felix. The partisans of either faction were pre- 
pared for a fierce struggle, when the timely death of 
his rival Dioscorus left Boniface II. in undisputed 
possession of the throne. Yet so exasperated october 14. 
were the parties, that Boniface would not reece 
allow his competitor to sleep in his grave; he fulmi- 
nated an anathema against him as an anti-Pope, and 
compelled the clergy to sign the decree. It was re- 
voked during the next pontificate. Boniface was of 
Gothic blood,! perhaps promoted by the Gothic party. 
He attempted a bold measure in order to get rid of the 
disgraceful and disastrous scenes of violence a.v.531. 
and bribery, which now seemed inveterate in the Papal 
elections. He proposed that during his lifetime the 
Pope should nominate his successor; he proceeded to 
designate Vigilius, a deacon, who afterwards ascended 
the Papal throne. An obsequious Council ratified this 


1 He was the son of Count Sigisbult or Sigisvult, though called a Roman 
by Anastasius. — Anastas. in Vit. 


458 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


extraordinary proceeding. Both parties, however, 
equally resented this attempt to wrest from them their 
a.v.532. undoubted privilege, and thus to reduce the 
Papacy to an ordinary inheritance at the disposition of 
its possessor. In a second Council they showed their 
repugnance and astonishment at the daring innovation. 
The Pope acknowledged his own decree to be an act 
of treason against ecclesiastical and even civil law, 
burned it in public, and left the election of his suc- 
cessor to proceed in the old course.!. There were 
again at the death of Boniface fierce strife, undisguised 
bribery, and shame and horror after all was over. 
Remedies were sought for this ineradicable disease. 
Dec. 81,532. On the death of Boniface, the Roman Senate 
resumed some of its ancient authority, and issued an 
edict prohibiting these base and venal proceedings, 
during which the funds designed for the poor were 
loaded with debts, even the sacred vessels sold for these 
simoniacal uses. Athalaric confirmed this edict.2 John 
II., whose former name was Mercurius, ruled for three 
years. During his papacy arrived a splendid embassy 
from the East, with magnificent offerings, golden 
vessels, chalices of silver, jewels, and curtains of cloth 
of gold for the Church of St. Peter. The pretext 
was a deferential consultation with the Pope, concerning 
a.v.534. the sleepless monks, who were still not with- 
out some Nestorian tendencies. At the same time 


1 Anastas. in Vit., and Labbe, p. 1690. 

2 “Tta facultates pauperum extortis promissionibus ingravasse, ut (quod 
dictu nefas est) etiam sacra vasa emptioni publice viderentur exposita.’’ — 
Athalar. Reg. Epist. apud Labbe, p. 1748. This law annulled all bargains 
made for the appointment to bishoprics. It declared the offence to be sac- 
rilege; and limited the payments to the chancery on contested elections, — 
for the papacy to 3000 golden solidi, for archbishoprics or bishoprics to 2000 
The largess to the poor was restricted to 500. 


Crap. IV. AGAPETUS. 459 


came an ambassador to Theodotus, now Ostrogothic 
King, with expostulations, or rather imperious me- 
naces, on alleged violations of the treaties between the 
Gothic kingdom and the Empire. During the short 
and troubled reign of Theodotus, Justinian received 
petitions from all parts of Italy, and from all persons, 
lay as well as clerical, with the air and tone of its 
Sovereign. 

The aged Agapetus had succeded to the Roman See 
before Justinian prepared for the actual 11-- agapetus. 
vasion of Italy. In the agony of his fear lyme 8, PBB: 
Theodotus the Goth had recourse to the same measure 
which Theodorie had adopted in his pride. He per- 
suaded or compelled the Pope to proceed on an em- 
bassy to Constantinople, to ward off the impending 
danger, to use his influence and authority lest a Roman 
and orthodox Emperor should persist in his attempt to 
wrest Italy and Rome from a barbarous Arian; and 
Theodotus commanded the Prelate to be the bearer 
of menaces more befitting the herald of war. He 
was to declare the determination of the Goth, if Jus- 
tinian should fulfil his hostile designs, to put the 
Senate to the sword, and raze the city of the Cesars 
to the ground.! Like his predecessor, Agapetus was 
received with the highest honors. Justinian had already 
suspended, for a short time, his warlike preparations ; 
but Agapetus found affairs more within his Agapetus 

° . 0 6 in Constan- 
province, which enabled him to display to tinople. 
the despot of the East the bold and independent 
tone assumed even against the throne by the ecclesias- 
tics of the West. The See of Constantinople was 
vacant. The all-powerful Theodora summoned Anthi- 


1 The embassy was in Constantinople, Feb. 2, 5386. 


400 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III 


mus, bishop of Trebisond, to the Metropolitan diocese. 
Anthimus was suspected as tainted with Eutychian 
opinions. Agapetus resolutely declined to communi- 
cate with a Prelate, whose appointment not merely 
violated the Canon against translation from one see to 
another, but one likewise of doubtful orthodoxy. The 
venal partisans of Anthimus and of Theodora insin- ' 
uated countercharges of Nestorian inclinations against 
the Bishop of Rome.? Agapetus, in a conference, 
condescended to satisfy the Emperor as to his own 
unimpeachable orthodoxy. Justinian sternly com- 
manded him to communicate with Anthimus. ‘* With 
the Bishop of Trebisond,” replied the unawed ecclesi- 
astic, “‘when he has returned to his diocese, and ac- 
cepted the Council of Chalcedon and the letters of 
Leo.”” The Emperor in a louder voice commanded 
him to acknowledge the Bishop of Constantinople on 
pain of immediate exile. “1 came hither in my old 
age to see, as I supposed, a religious and a Christian 
Emperor, I find a new Diocletian. But I fear not 
Kings’ menaces, I am ready to lay down my lie for 
the truth.” The feeble mind of Justinian passed at 
once from the height of arrogance to admiration and 
respect: he listened to the charges advanced by Aga- 
petus against the orthodoxy of Anthimus. In his 
turn the Bishop of Constantinople was summoned to 
render an account of his theology before the Emperor, 
convicted of Eutychianism, and degraded from the see. 
Mennas, nominated in his room, was consecrated by the 
Pope. Thus one patriarch of Constantinople was de- 
April 22, 636. graded, another promoted by the influence, if 
not by the authority (the distinction was not marked, 


1 Libellus de Reb. Gestis ab Agap. ad Constant. apud Baronium, 536. 


Cuar. IV. ROME SURRENDERED TO BELISARIUS. 461 


as in later theologic disputes) of the Bishop of Rome. 
Agapetus did not live long to enjoy his triumph ; he 
died at Constantinople; his funeral rites were cele- 
brated with great magnificence ; his body sent to Rome. 
His memory was venerated alike in the East and in the 
West. 

But the next few years beheld the Papacy degraded 
from its lofty and independent dignity. Rome Justinian eon 
was now within the dominions of the sole Em- unread 
peror of the world. Belisarius, in his unchecked career 
of conquest, had subdued Africa, Sicily, Naples ; he 
entered undefended Rome as its master.1 The Pope 
became first the victim, then the base instrument of the 
temporal power. Rome, now a city of the Eastern 
Empire, was brought at once within the sphere of the 
female intrigues of Constantinople ; one Pope, Silverius, 
suffered degradation ; another, the most doubtful char- 
acter who had yet sat on the throne of St. Peter, receiy- 
ed his appointment through the arts of the infamous 
Theodora, and suffered the judicial punishment of his 
weaknesses and crimes, — persecution, shame, remorse. 
Silverius, the new Pope, was the son of the former 
Pontiff Hormisdas, the legitimate son, born before the 
father had taken holy orders. Silverius was Rome sur- 
Bishop of Rome by command of Theodotus, nate 
yet undegraded from the Ostrogothic throne.? But 
the Romans saw with undisguised but miscalculating 
pride, the Roman banners, floating over the army of 
Belisarius, approach their walls. The Pope dared (the 
Goths were in confusion at the degradation of The- 


1 See the war in Gibbon, ch. xli. 
2 Sine deliberatione decreti, Vit. Syly. Confer. Marcell. Chron. Jaffe 
Regesta, sub ann. 536. He was consecrated June 8. 


402 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


odotus, and the elevation of Witiges) to urge the 
Romans to send an ambassador to hail the deliverer 
of the city from the barbaric Goth.! The Bishop of 
Rome received the General of the East, and, as it were, 
restored Rome to the Roman empire. Belisarius was 
lord of the Capitol, and at once the consequence of 
Rome’s subjugation to the East broke upon the Pope 
and upon Rome. Theodora had never abandoned her 
hopes of promoting her favorite, Anthimus, to the See 
of Constantinople; she entered into a league with the 
Deacon Vigilius, who had accompanied the Pope Aga- 
Vigilius. petus into the East. Vigilius was a man of 
unmeasured ambition, and great ability ;? he had been 
designated as his successor by Pope Boniface; and 
when the unanimous voice of the clergy and the people 
wrested from Boniface the usurped right of nominating 
his successor, Vigilius was left to brood over other 
means of obtaining the pontificate. The compact pro- 
posed by the Empress, and accepted by the unscrupu- 
lous Vigilius, stipulated on her part the degradation of 
Silverius, and a large sum of money, no doubt to secure 
his election, and to consolidate his interest in Rome ; 
on that of the ecclesiastic, no less than the eondemna- 
tion of the Council of Chalcedon, and the acknowledg- 
ment of Anthimus, as Bishop of Constantinople. The 
degradation of Silverius was intrusted not to the all- 
powerful Belisarius alone, but to the surer hands of his 
wife Antonina, the accomplice of the Empress in all 
her intrigues of every kind, and her counterpart in the 


1 Μάλιστα δὲ αὐτους Σιλβέριος εἰς τοῦτο ἐνῆγεν, ὁ τῆσδε τῆς πόλεως ἀρ- 
χιερεύς. Procop. de Β. G. i. ο. 14. 

2 “Lubenter ergo suscepit Vigilius permissum ejus, amore episcopattis et 
auri.’’ — Liberat. Breviar. c. xxii. 


(ΗΑΡ. IV. VIGILIUS. 463 


arbitrary power with which she ruled her glorious but 
easy husband. The Pope Silverius was accused of 
treasonable correspondence with the Goths, witnesses 
were suborned to support this improbable charge 
against him who had yielded up the city to the con- 
queror. Belisarius, it is said, endeavored to save the 
Pope from degradation, by inducing him to yepruary, 

accede to the wishes of Theodora, to con- ιν ἢν ®7- 

demn the Council of Chalcedon, and to communicate 
with Anthimus. The resolution of Silverius, who 
firmly rejected these propositions, left him the defence- 
less victim of Vigilius and of Antonina. The successor 
of St. Peter was rudely summoned to the Pincian 
Palace, the military quarters of Belisarius. In the 
chamber of the General sat Antonina on the bed, with 
her husband at her feet. ‘* What have we done,” ex- 
claimed the imperious woman, ‘to you, Pope Silverius, 
and to the Romans, that you should betray us to the 
Goths?” In an instant the pall was rent from his 
shoulders by a subdeacon, he was hurried into another 
room, stripped of the rest of his dress, and clad in that 
of a monk. The clergy who accompanied him were 
informed of his degradation in a few careless words, 
“The Pope Silverius is deposed, and is now a monk.” 
The most extraordinary part of this strange transaction 
is the utter ignorance of Justinian of the whole in- 
trigue. From Patara, the place of his banishment, 
Silverius made his way to Constantinople, and to the 
amazement of the Emperor preferred his complaint of 
the unjust violence with which he had been expelled 
from his See. Justinian commanded his instant return 
to Rome. If, on further investigation, it should appear 
that he had been unjustly accused of treason, he was 


464 LATIN CHRISTIANITY, Boox III. 


to be reinstated in his dignity. The sudden reappear- 
ance of Silverius in Rome (he had outsailed the mes- 
sengers of Theodora) embarrassed for a time, only for 
a short time, the unscrupulous Vigilius, and his more 
than imperial patrons. By the influence of Antonina, 
Silverius was delivered up to his rival, and banished by 
him who aspired to be the head of Christendom, to the 
island of Pandataria, infamous as the place of exile to 
which the worst heathen emperors had consigned the 
victims of their tyranny. On this wretched rock Sil- 
verius soon closed his life, whether in the course of 
nature or by violent means, seems to have been known 
with no more certainty in his own days than in ours.! 
Vigilius was now, by command of Belisarius,? the 
Vigilinue undisputed Pontiff of Rome.? He had paid 
ope. A ᾿ 
κι 4. already a fearful price for his advancement, — 
false accusation, cruel oppression, perhaps murder. At 
Rome he declares his adhesion to the four councils 
and to the letter of Leo; he approves the anathema 
of Mennas of Constantinople against the Monophy- 
sites.4 But four years after, Theodora demanded, and 
Vigilius dared not refuse, the rest of his unholy cove- 
nant, at least the base and secret adoption of all her 
heretical opinions. In a letter still extant,’ but con- 

1 Anastasii vita. Liberatus writes briefly and significantly, ‘“ Solus in- 
gressus a suis ulterius non est visus.’’ — Breviar. ¢. xxiii. 

2 Ἕτερον δὲ ἀρχιερέα, ὀλίγῳ ὕστερον Βιγίλιον ὄνομα κατεστήσατο. So 
writes the Greek Procopius of Belisarius. 

8 The date of his accession is a point of grave dispute. If it is reckoned 
from his first nomination to the see, he can only be held an uncanonical 
usurper of an unvacated see, and that nomination must have been null and 
void. A second election therefore has been supposed; but of this event 
there is no accredited record. It is impossible so to connect the broken 
links of the spiritual genealogy. 


4 A.D. 540, September 17. — Mansi. ix. 35, 38. 
5 The letter is given by Liberatus. One main argument against its au- 


Crap. IV. VIGILIUS POPE. 465 


tested on account of its damning effect on one who 
was, or who afterwards became Pope, rather than from 
any mark, either external or internal, of spuriousness, 
Vigilius gave his deliberate adhesion to Eutychianism. 
The busy and restless theology of the East had now 
raised a new question, and Justinian aspired to the 
dignity of a profound divine, and a legislator of Chris- 
tian doctrine as well as of Christian civil affairs. He 
plunged with headstrong zeal into the controversy.} 
The Church was not now disturbed by the sublime, 
if inexplicable, dogmas concerning the nature of God, 
. the Persons of the Trinity, or the union of the divine 
and human nature of Christ ; concerning the revela- 
tions of Scripture, or even the opinions of the ancient 
fathers: the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of certain writ- 
ings by bishops, but recently dead, became the subject 
of Imperial edicts, of a fifth so called Gicumenic Coun- 
cil, held at Constantinople, and a religious war between 
the East and the West. Under the name of the three 
Chapters, the Emperor and the obsequious Council 


thenticity is, that he was never charged with it by his enemies or by Jus- 
tinian. But it was a private letter to Theodora, and contains this sentence, 
‘‘ Oportet ergo, ut hac que vobis scribo, nullus agnoscat.”” The letter may 
not have come to light till after the death of Theodora. But, with some 
mistrust of their own feeble critical arguments, the high papal writers assert 
that Vigilius, when he wrote this letter, was only an antipope and a schis- 
matic. His subsequent legitimate election arrayed him in perfect Christian 
faith and virtue. He became officially orthodox. Binii not. in Liberatum. 
Dupin ventures to say that Liberatus is better authority than either Baronius 
or Binius. 

1 Justinian had already made an essay of his theological powers. In 
Palestine the controversy concerning the opinions of Origen had broken out 
again, and caused violent popular tumults. Pelagius, the legate of the 
Pope, and the Patriarch of Constantinople Mennas, urged the interference 
of Justinian. The emperor threw himself headlong into the dispute, and 
issued an encyclic letter, condemning the Origenists: the imperial anathema 
was subscribed by Mennas and many other bishops of Constantinople. 

VOL, I. 30 


400 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III 


condemned certain works of Theodorus of Mopsuestia, 
Theodoret of Cyrus, and Ibas of Edessa.’ These writ- 
ings, though questionable as the source of, or as infected 
with Nestorianism, had passed uncondemned by the 
Council of Chalcedon. The imperial edict usurped 
the form of a confession of faith, and trespassed on the 
exclusive right of the clergy to anathematize the holders 
of erroneous doctrines. Great part of the submissive 
or consentient East received the dictates of the imperial 
theologian ; the West as generally and resolutely re- 
fused compliance. Vigilius was peremptorily sum- 
a.v.54. moned to Constantinople. He set forth, 
loaded with the imprecations of the Roman people, 
and assailed with volleys of stones, as the murderer 
of Silverius, and a man of notorious cruelty. It was 
said that he had killed one of his own secretaries in 
a fit of passion, and caused his nephew, the son of his 
sister, to be scourged to death. ‘“ May famine and 
pestilence pursue thee; evil hast thou done to us, may 
evil overtake thee wherever thou art.” A strong 
guard protected his person first to Sicily, and thence 
after near two years’ delay to Constantinople. 

His departure from Rome was fortunate for himself, 
fortunate perhaps for the dignity of the Papacy. Dur- 
ing his absence, Rome was besieged by the Goths. A 
supply of corn sent by Vigilius from Sicily was inter- 


1 The condemnation of the three chapters implied at least a covert cen- 
sure of the Council of Chalcedon. I. The fathers of that council had re- 
ceived Theodoret into communion, and, content with his condemnation of 
Nestorius, had not demanded his retractation of his writings against Cyril 
of Alexandria. II. They had inserted in their proceedings a letter from 
Ibas of Edessa to the Persian Maris, in which he highly praised Theodorus 
of Mopsuestia, the master of Nestorius, blamed Cyril, and accused the 
Council of Ephesus as having too hastily condemned Nestorius. — Anastas. 
in Vita. 


Cuap. IV. VIGILIUS AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 467 


cepted on the Tiber by the barbarians ; the Bishop 
Valentinus, who accompanied it, was summoned before 
the savage conqueror, and appearing to prevaricate, was 
mutilated by cutting off both his hands. It was fortu- 
nate on another account: Constantinople alone wit- 
nessed the weakness and tergiversations of Vigilius, 
who at least three times pliantly yielded to, and then 
desperately resisted the theologic dictatorship of Jus- 
tinian; three times condemned the three Chapters, 
three times recanted his condemnation. Constanti- 
nople alone witnessed the personal indignities, the per- 
secutions of which reports, perhaps exaggerated, reached 
the West, but which were neither rendered glorious to a 
servant of Christ by Christian blamelessness (the sense 
of which might have allayed their bitterness) or by 
Christian meekness and resolution, which might have 
turned them to his honor and to his peace. He had 
the sufferings, but neither the outward dignity nor the 
inward consolation of martyrdom. 

It was a perilous crisis for a Prelate so ambitious, yet 
so double-minded, so trammelled by former obligations, 
and so bound by common guilt to one of the a.». 548. 
contending parties. For there was division in the 
court; Justinian and Theodora, as throughout in re- 
ligious interests, were on opposite sides; the East and 
the West were irreconcilably adverse. Vigilius was 
emboldened by his honorable reception in Constanti- 
nople; the Emperor and the Pope are said to June 11, 584. 
have wept, when they first met.!. The death of Theo- 
dora soon relieved Vigilius from some part of his embar- 
rassment.. Yet he miscalculated his power, and dared 
to resist the Imperial will; he refused to condemn the 

1 Anastas. in Vit. 


40ὃ LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


three Chapters. He even ventured to address the Em- 
peror under the favorite appellation, bestowed on all 
imperial opponents of ecclesiastical authority, as a new 
Diocletian. He excluded from his communion Men- 
nas, the Patriarch of Constantinople ; he excommunt- 
cated Theodorus of Cesarea, and even the departed 
Empress herself. Mennas threw back the anathema, 
and on his side excommunicated the Pope. Vigilius 
was ere long obliged to withdraw his censures, and to 
reconcile himself with the rival Prelate. Scarcely, 
indeed, had many months passed before the Pope at 
the head of a Council of seventy bishops, issued his 
v.64. infallible anathema against the three Chap- 
ters. The West at once threw off its allegiance, and 
refused to listen to the ingenious sophistry with which 
Vigilius attempted to reconcile his solemn judgment 
with his former opinions. Illyricum, Africa with all 
her old dauntless pertinacity, even his own clerg 
revolted against the renegade Pope. He revoked his 
imprudent concessions, recanted his recantation, and 
prevailed on the Emperor to summon a Council, in 
order, it should seem, either to obtain the support of 
the Council against the Emperor, or to compel the 
Western bishops to give up their resistance. The 
Eastern prelates assembled in great numbers at the 
Council, the Western stood aloof. Vigilius refused to 
sanction or recognize the Council in the absence of the 
Western bishops. Justinian, indignant at the delay, 
promulgated a new edict, condemning the three Chap- 
ters in still stronger terms on his own plenary au- 
thority. Vigilius assembled as many bishops as he 
could collect, solemnly protested against the usurpation 
of ecclesiastical authority, and cut off from his com- 


Cuapr. IV. EXILE OF VIGILIUS. 469 


munion all who received the edict. But a Byzantine 
despot was not to be thus trifled with or boldly bearded 
in his own capital, and the Eastern bishops refused to 
hold communion with the successor of St. Peter. Ap- 
prehensive of violence, the Pope took refuge in a sanctu- 
ary ; but neither the Emperor nor his troops were dis- 
posed to reverence the sacred right of asylum. They 
attempted to drag him forth by the feet, he clung to 
the altar, and being a large and powerful man, the 
pillars of the baldachin gave way, and the whole fell 
crumbling upon him.' The populace could not behold 
without compassion these personal outrages, heaped on a 
venerable ecclesiastic ; the imperial officers were obliged 
to retire and leave Vigilius within the church. He 
was persuaded, however, on certain terms to leave his 
sanctuary. Again he suffered, according to rumors 
propagated in the West, still more barbarous usage ; 
he was said to have been dragged through the city 
with a rope round his neck, and reproached with his 
crimes and cruelties, then committed to a common 
dungeon, and kept on the hardest prison diet, 4.v. 562. 

bread and water. A second time escaped to his sanc- 
tuary, and from thence by night fled over the sea to 
Chalcedon. There he took refuge in the more awful and 
inviolable sanctuary of Saint Euphemia. The Emperor 
condescended to capitulate on honorable terms with the 
Prelate. He revoked his edict, and left the three 
Chapters to the decrees of the Council. Vigilius had 
promised to be present at the Council; but dared not 
confront alone the host of Eastern bishops who com- 


1 Vigilius himself relates the former outrage, but does not mention par- 
ticularly the other indignities: but he says, ‘‘ Dum multa mala intolerabilia 
sepius pateremur que jam omnibus nota esse confidimus.’’-— Epist. En- 
sycl. apud Labbe, p. 330. 


470 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


posed it. The Council, according to the dominant 
sentiment of the East, renewed the condemnation of 
the three Chapters. Vigilius with difficulty collected 
a.v. 558. sixteen Western bishops, issued ἃ protest 
against the decree, and a Constitution, solemnly ac- 
quitting the three Chapters of heresy. The wrath 
of the Emperor was again kindled ;! Vigilius was once 
more seized and sent in exile to the dreary and solitary 
rock of Proconnesus. There his courage or his pa- 
tience failed. Alarming reports reached him, that his 
name was to be struck out of the diptychs ; that 
orders were preparing for Rome to elect a new bishop. 
He intimated that now, at length, on more studious 
examination, he had detected the subtle and latent 
errors which had so long escaped his impeccable judg- 
a.v.564. ment, and was prepared with a Constitution, 
condemnatory of those baneful writings. He was re- 
called to Constantinople, obtained leave, after his full 
June 7, 554. submission, to return to Rome, but died in 
Sicily of the stone, before he could reach his see. 

Such was the miserable fate of a Pope who came 
into direct collision with the Imperial despotism of 
Constantinople. A Prelate of unimpeachable charac- 
ter, uncommitted by base subserviency to the court, and 
who had not owed his elevation to unworthy means, 
or one of more firm religious courage, might have 
escaped some portion of the degradation and contempt 
endured by Vigilius; but it is impossible not to ob- 
serve again how much the Papal power owed to the 
position of Rome. Even its freedom, far more its 


1 Theodorus of Cesarea was the ecclesiastic who ruled the mind of Jus- 
tinian. See the imperfect anathema and sentence of deposition against 
him. — Labbe. 


Cuap. IV. PELAGIUS. 471 


authority, arose out of its having ceased to be the seat 
of Imperial government, and the residence of the Em- 
peror. During the conquest of Italy by the Eastern 
Emperors, and for some time after, the Pope was not 
confronted indeed in Rome by a resident Emperor, but 
summoned at the will of the Emperor to Constanti- 
nople, or in Rome rebuked before a victorious general, 
or an Exarch, who, though he held his court at Ra- 
venna, executed the commands of a sovereign accus- 
tomed to dictate, rather than submit to ecclesiastical 
power. At scarcely any period did the papal authority 
suffer greater degradation, or were the persons of the 
Popes reduced to more humiliating subserviency. Nor 
is this passive humiliation, which, by the patient dig- 
nity with which it is endured, may elevate the char- 
acter of the sufferer; he is mingled up in the intrigues 
of the court, and contaminated with its base venality. 
He is hardly more independent or authoritative than 
the Patriarch of Constantinople. 

The successor of Vigilius was Pelagius I. Pelagius 
had been the legate or ambassador of Vigilius a.v. 556. 
at the court of Constantinople. He had won the favor 
of Justinian, and accumulated considerable wealth. 
He returned to Rome, a short time before it was be- 
sieged by Totila; and the wealth, obtained it might 
seem by doubtful means in the East, was nobly dis- 
pensed among the poor and famishing inhabitants of 
the beleaguered city. Pelagius during the popedom 
of Vigilius had been employed on the most important 
services. When the Goths again contested the domin- 
ion of Italy, he had undertaken an embassy in the 
name of the Romans to avert the wrath of Totila ; he 
had been received with stately courtesy, but dismissed 


472 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox II. 


with no concession on the part of the Goth.! After the 
capture of the city, when the victorious Totila entered 
the church of St. Peter to perform his devotions, he 
was met again by Pelagius, with the Gospel in his 
hands. ‘‘ Have mercy on thy subjects,” implored the 
earnest priest. ‘¢Now,” tauntingly replied Totila, 
‘you condescend to appear as a suppliant.” ‘* God,” 
answered Pelagius, ‘‘ has made us your subjects, be 
merciful to us on that account.” His calm and sub- 
missive demeanor arrested the wrath of the con- 
queror. Rome owed to his intercession the lives of 
her citizens, and the chastity of her females. Mas- 
sacre and violation were arrested; the discipline of the 
Goths respected the command of their kmg. Pelagius 
Ap. 549. was sent by Totila as his ambassador to Con- 
stantinople to demand peace, under the menace, that 
the Goth, if Justinian persisted in his hostility, would 
destroy Rome, and put the Senate to the sword.2 Pe- 
lagius again in Constantinople, adhered as a faithful 
partisan to Vigilius, with him he resisted the theologic 
tyranny of Justinian ; and, if he did not share his hard 
usage and exile, was left to neglect and misery. With 
Vigilius, having shown himself too pliant to the impe- 
rial doctrines, he returned to Rome, and on the death 
of Vigilius, by the command of Justinian, was elevated 
to the See.2 But now in Rome, all his former benefac- 
tions to the city were forgotten in his treacherous 
abandonment of the orthodoxy of the West, and his 
servile compliance with the will of the Emperor; he 
could not assemble from all the reluctant order three 


1 Procop. de Bell. Gothic., iii. 16. 

2 Procop. de Bell. Gothic., iii. 20. 

3 According to Victor Turon, he at first defended, then recalled from ex- 
ile, condemned the three chapters (ap. Roncagl. ii. 377). 


ὕπαρ. IV. PELAGIUS. 473 


bishops for the ceremonial of his consecra- June 7, 556. 
tion; it was performed by two bishops and a presby- 
ter! His favor with Justinian exposed him to worse, 
doubtless to unjust suspicions. He was accused of 
having been the instigator in Constantinople of all the 
cruelties suffered by Vigilius. The monks, many of 
the clergy, and of the nobility of Rome, withdrew 
from his communion. Even when Narses reconquered 
Rome, the avowed protection of the Emperor’s victo- 
rious representative could not restore the public con- 
fidence to Pelagius. The Pope, with the general by 
his side, went in solemn procession, chanting a Litany, 
to the Church of St. Peter; and there Pelagius as- 
cended the chancel, and holding above his head the 
Book of the Gospels, and the Cross, solemnly declared 
that he had never wrought or suggested any evil against 
Vigilius. Pelagius added, and to this he demanded 
the assent of the people, a strong denunciation of all, 
who from the door-keeper up to the bishop should at- 
tempt to obtain any ecclesiastical office by simony.? 

Rome, after this expurgation, acquiesced in the rule 
of her Pontiff. But the Western bishops could not 
forgive his adhesion to the fifth Council of Constanti- 
nople, whose decrees had in some degree impeached 
those of the great Council of Chalcedon. Even in 
Italy the bishops of Tuscany would not admit his name 
into their sacramental liturgy. Pelagius bitterly re- 
proached them with thus yielding to vulgar clamor ; 
by separating themselves from the communion of an 
Apostolic See they had separated themselves from the 
communion of all Christendom. But he thought it 
necessary to declare his unreserved acceptance of all 


i Victor Turon., apud Roncagl. 2 Marcell. Chronic. apud Roneagli. 


474 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


the four great Councils (maintaining a prudent silence 
as to the fifth), and the Letter of his predecessor Leo. 
Whoever should not be content with this declaration, 
might demand further explanation from the Pope 
himself. Yet he condemned all that his predecessors 
had condemned, venerated as orthodox all that they re- 
ceived, especially the saintly prelates, Theodoret and 
Ibas.1. The Pope addressed a letter to the whole 
Christian world, in which, after reasserting his allegi- 
ance to the four Councils, he attempted to justify the 
fifth as in no way impeaching the authority of Chalce- 
don. A new royal theologian, Childebert, king of the 
_ Franks, entered the field, and required a more explicit 
statement. With this the Pope condescended to com- 
ply ; he sent his confession of faith to the King, with 
an admonition to the orthodox sovereign to exercise 
vigilance over all heretics within his dominions. Still 
some obstinate dioceses, chiefly of Venetia and Istria, 
refused communion with all who adhered to the Synod 
of Constantinople. Pelagius had recourse to the all- 
powerful Narses to enforce submission; the most re- 
fractory, the Bishop of Aquileia and the Bishop of 
Milan, who had uncanonically consecrated that prelate, 
were sent prisoners to Constantinople. 

On the death of Pelagius,2 Rome waited in obse- 
quious submission the permission of the Emperor to 
July 14, 560. Inaugurate her new Pope, John ΠῚ he 
period between the accession of John III. and that of 
Gregory the Great is among the most barren and 
obscure in the annals of the papacy. One act of mis- 
Judging authority, and one of intercession, are recorded 
during the pontificate of John. He received, accord- 

1 Mansi. ix. 17. 2 Pelagius died 560. 


Crap. IV. THE EUNUCH NARSES. 475. 


ing to the permission of the Frankish King, Gunthram, 
the appeal of two bishops, Salonius of Embrun and 
Sagittarius of Gap,’ who had been deposed for crimes 
most unbefitting their order by a synod at Lyons. 
These were the first Christian bishops who had ap- 
peared in arms, the prototypes of the warlike and 
robber-prelates of later times. The Pope urged 
their restoration, the King assented: but the rein- 
stated prelates returned to their lawless and unepis- 
copal courses, and were again degraded by the common 
indignation. 

The act of intercession was more worthy of the head 
of Western Christendom. The Eunuch Nar- α.ν. 552-567. 
ses had ruled Italy and Rome as Exarch for fifteen 
years since the conquest, with vigor and justice. 
Justinian and Theodora had gone to their account ; 
the throne of the East was occupied by Justin the 
younger. But the province groaned under the rapac- 
ity of Narses. Petitions were sent to Constantinople 
with the significant words, that the yoke of the bar- 
barian Gauls was lighter than this Roman tyranny. 
Narses was superseded by the Exarch Longinus, insult 
was added to his degradation. ‘Let him to his dis- 
taff,” is the speech ascribed to the imperious wife of 
the Emperor Justin the younger. “1 will weave her 
such a web as she will find it hard to unravel,” re- 
joined the indignant Eunuch. He returned to Naples, 
from whence he entered into negotiations with the 
terrible Lombards, who had once already invaded 
Italy. Revolt, with Narses at its head, threatened 
the peace of Italy. The Pope undertook an embassy 
to Naples, appeased the wrathful Eunuch, who return- 


1 Ebrodonum. Vapincum. 


476 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


ed to Rome, and closed his days as a peaceful subject 
of the empire. 

The few years of the pontificate of Benedict I. were 
Benediet1, Occupied with the miseries of the Lombard 
June 3,574. invasion. His successor Pelagius II. in those 
disastrous times was consecrated without awaiting the 
sanction of the Emperor.!  Pelagius in vain endeavored 
Nov. 27, 688. to reduce the bishops of the north of Italy 
to accept the fifth Council of Constantinople. Some 
who were now under the Lombard dominion paid no 
regard to his expostulations; a synod at Grado re- 
jected his mandates, and the bishops defied the power 
of the Exarch, through whom Pelagius sought to awe 
them to submission. Yet Pelagius, in one respect, 
maintained all the haughtiness of his See. The 
a..58. Bishop of Constantinople had again assumed 
the title of GScumenic Patriarch, the assumption was 
confirmed by a Council at Constantinople. Pelagius 
protested against this execrable, sacrilegious, diabolic 
κα. 500. usurpation: but in Constantinople his invec- 
tives made no impression. Pelagius was succeeded by 
Gregory the Great. 

Since the conquest of Italy the Popes had been the 
humble subjects of the Eastern Emperor. They were 
appointed, if not directly by his mandate, under his 
influence. They dared not assume their throne with- 
out his permission. The Roman Ordinal of that time 
declares the election incomplete and invalid till it had 
received, the imperial sanction.2— Months elapsed, in 
the case of Benedict ten months, before the clergy 
ventured to proceed to the consecration. 


1 Sine jussione Principis, Vit. Pelag. II. 
2 Compare Schroeck, xvii. p. 236. 


Cuar. IV. OVERTHROW OF THE GOTHIC KINGDOM. 477 


Pelagius II. was chosen when Rome was invested 
by the Lombards ; for this ignominious reason he had 
been consecrated without the consent of the Emperor. 

The conquest of Italy by the Greeks was, to a great 
extent at least, the work of the Catholic clergy. Their 
impatience under a foreign and an Arian yoke is by no 
means surprising; nor could they anticipate that the 
return to Roman dominion would be the worst evil yet 
endured by Italy. Rome suffered more under the al- 
ternate sieges and alternate capture by the Byzantines 
and the Goths than it had from Alaric or even Gen- 
seric, as much perhaps as in its later sieges by Robert 
Guiscard, and by the Constable Bourbon. The feeble 
but tyrannical Exarchs soon made Italy regret the just, 
if oppressive and ungenial rule of the Goths. The 
overthrow of the Gothic kingdom was to Italy an un- 
mitigated evil. A monarch like Witiges or Totila 
would soon have repaired the mischiefs caused by the 
degenerate successors of 'Theodoric, Athalaric and 
Theodotus. In their overthrow began the fatal policy 
of the Roman See, fatal at least to Italy (however, by 
the aggrandizement of the Roman See, it may have 
been, up to a certain time, beneficial to northern Chris- 
tendom), which never would permit a powerful native 
kingdom to unite Italy, or a very large part of it, under 
one dominion. Whatever it may have been to Chris- 
tendom, the Papacy has been the eternal, implacable 
foe of Italian independence and Italian unity ; and so 
(as far as independence and unity might have given 
dignity, political weight, and prosperity) to the welfare 
of Italy. On every occasion the Goths, the Lom- 
bards, as later the Normans and the House of Arra- 
gon, found their deadliest enemies in the popes. As 


478 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


now from the East,so then from beyond the Alps, 
they summoned some more remote potentate, Charle- 
magne, the Othos, Charles VIIL., Charles of Anjou, 
almost always worse tyrants than those whom they 
overthrew. From that time servitude, servitude to the 
stranger, was the doom of Italy. To Rome herself, 
the foreign sovereign (the tyranny of the Eastern Em- 
peror and his Exarchs was an admonition of what the 
transalpine emperors might hereafter prove) was hardly 
less dangerous than a native and indigenous sovereign 
would have been. And if the papacy had been more 
confined to its religious power, less tempted or less com- 
pelled to assume temporal as well as ecclesiastical su- 
premacy, that power had been immeasurably greater, 
as less involved in political strife, less exposed to that 
kind of personal collision with the temporal monarchy, 
in which a sovereignty which rests on the awe and rev- 
erence of men must suffer; it might have maintained 
its ecclesiastical supremacy over obedient and tributary 
Christendom, even held as vast possessions on the ten- 
ure not of a temporal princedom, but of an ecclesiasti- 
cal endowment; and thus more entirely ruled the 
minds of men by confining its authority to that nobler 
and, for a time at least, more unassailable province. 
Rome, jealous of all temporal sovereignty but her 
own, for centuries yielded up, or rather made Italy a 
battle field to the Transalpine and the stranger ; and at 
the same time so secularized her own spiritual suprem- 
acy as to confound altogether the priest and the poli- 
tician, to degrade absolutely and almost irrevocably the 
kingdom of Christ into a kingdom of this world. 


σπαρ. Υ͂. FIRST EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 479 


CHAPTER V. 
CHRISTIAN JURISPRUDENCE. 


CuRristIANiry had been now for more than two cen- 
turies the established religion of the Roman Empire ; 
it was the religion of all those independent kingdoms 
which were forming themselves within the dissevered 
provinces of Rome. Between the religion and the 
laws of all nations must subsist an intimate and indis- 
soluble connection. During all that period the vast and 
august jurisprudence of Rome had been constantly en- 
larged by new imperial edicts or- authoritative decrees, 
supplementary to, or corrective and interpretative of, 
the ancient statutes. 

I. The jurisprudence of the old Roman Empire at 
first admitted, but only in a limited degree, this modi- 
fying power of Christianity. The laws which were 
purely Christian were hardly more than accessory and 
supplementary to the vast code which had accumulated 
from the days of the republic, through the great law- 
yers of the empire, down to Theodosius and Justinian. 
But the complete moral, social, and in some sense polit- 
ical revolution, through Christianity, could not be with- 

1 Let me not be suspected of the vain ambition of emulating Gibbon’s 
splendid chapter on Roman Law, which has become the text-book in uni- 
versities (see my edition of Gibbon). My object is more narrow and 


limited; and appeared necessary to the history even of Latin Christianity ; 
to show the interworking of Christianity into the Roman jurisprudence. 


480 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


out influence, both as creating a necessity for new laws 
adapted to the present order of things, or as control- 
ling, through the mind of the legislator, the general 
temper and spirit of the legislation. A Christian Em- 
Hirst effects peror could not exclude this influence from 
ity. his mind, either as affecting his moral appre- 
ciation of certain obligations and transgressions, or as 
ascertaining and defining the social position, the rights 
and duties, of new classes and divisions of his subjects. 
Under Christianity a new order of men of a peculiar 
character, with special privileges, immunities, and 
functions, had grown up throughout the whole society ; 
new corporate bodies, the churches and the monaster- 
ies, had been formed, holding property of every kind 
by a new tenure ; certain offences in the penal code 
were now looked on with a milder or more severe 
aspect ; a more strict morality had attempted to knit 
more closely some of the relations of life; vices which 
had been tolerated became crimes against social order οἱ 
and an offence, absolutely new in the extent of odious- 
ness in which it was held, and the rigor with which it 
was punished, Heresy, or dissent from the dominant 
religion, in all its various forms, had been introduced 
into the criminal jurisdiction, not of the Church only, 
but of the Empire. The imperial legislation could not 
refuse, it was not inclined to refuse, to take cognizance 
of this novel order of things, and to adapt itself to the 
necessities of the age. 

Il. The Barbaric Codes, which embodied in written 
Barbie «Statutes the unwritten, immemorial, and tra- 
cones. ditionary laws and usages of the Teutonic 
tribes (the common law of the German forests), assum- 
ing their positive form after the different races had sub- 


Crap. Υ. CHRISTIAN JURISPRUDENCE. 481 


mitted to Christianity, were more completely interpen- 
etrated, as it were, with Christian influences. The 
unlettered barbarians willingly accepted the aid of the 
lettered clergy, still chiefly of Roman birth, to reduce 
to writing the institutes of their forefathers. Though 
these codes therefore, in their general character and 
main principles, are essentially Teutonic —in their 
broad principles are deduced from the free usages of 
the old German tribes — yet throughout they are mod- 
ified by Christian notions, and admit a singular infu- 
sion, not merely of the precepts of the New Testa- 
ment, but of the positive laws of the Old. 

But III. Christianity had its own peculiar and 
special jurisprudence. The Christian com- gyistian ju- 
munity, or rather the separate communities, Prt’: 
had originally exercised this power of internal legisla- 
tion. They held each its separate tribunal, which ad- 
judicated not only on religious matters, but, as an 
acknowledged wise and venerated arbitrator, in civil 
litigation. This legislation and administration of law 
had gradually become vested in the clergy alone; and, 
instead of each community ruling its own internal con- 
cerns, and presiding over its own separate members, 
the Church, as chiefly represented by the bishops, 
either in local or national synods, or in general coun- 
cils, enacted statutes or canons, considered binding on 
the whole Christian world. The sanctions of this 
Christian jurisprudence were properly altogether relig- 
ious: they rested on opinion, on the voluntary submis- 
sion of each individual mind to spiritual authority. 
Their punishments and rewards were properly those of 
the life to come. The only punishments in this world 
were those of the penitential discipline, or excommuni- 

VOL. I. 31 


482 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III 


cation from the Christian society, which was tanta- 
mount, with all who believed salvation to be the exclu- 
sive privilege of the Church, to a sentence of eternal 
damnation. Those who braved that disfranchisement 
—who either, as the Jews, never had entered within 
the community, or as holding heretical opinions had 
renounced it — were rightfully beyond its jurisdiction. 
The legislators and administrators of the laws had lost 
all cognizance over those upon whose faith or whose 
fears they had no hold. These were outlaws, who, as 
they blindly or obstinately disclaimed the inestimable 
privileges of the Church, could not be amenable at 
least to its temporal penalties. Unhappily the civil and 
canon, the Imperial and Christian, legislation would 
not maintain their respective boundaries. This arose 
partly from the established constitutional doctrine of 
Rome, that the Republic (now the Emperor) was the 
religious as well as the civil head of the Empire; 


partly from the blindness of Christian zeal, which 


thought all means lawful to advance the true, or to sup- 
press erroneous, belief; and therefore fell into the irrec- 
oncilable contradiction of inflicting temporal penalties 
by temporal hands for spiritual offences. Athanasius 
Supremacy hailed and applauded the full civil supremacy 
of the Em- c . 

peror. of the state when it commanded the exile of 
Arius ; contested, resisted, branded it as usurping tyr- 
anny, when it would exact obedience from himself. 
Thus, though the Councils were the proper legislative 
senates of Christianity, so long as the Empire lasted in 
the West, even later; and in the East down to the 
latest times; the Emperors enacted and enforced the 
observation of the ecclesiastical as well as of the civil 
law. Theodosius and Gratian define or ratify the defi- 


Cuap. V. CODE OF JUSTINIAN. 483 


nition of doctrines, declare and condemn heretics. Jus- 
tinian is a kind of Caliph of Christianity, at once in 
the authoritative tone and in the subjects which he 
comprehends under his decrees he is a Pope and an 
Emperor. In the barbaric codes there is the same ab- 
solute supremacy of the sovereign law —in theory the 
same, but restricted by the more limited royal power, 
and the peculiar relation of the clergy to tribes newly 
converted to Christianity. Where there is a strong 
monarchy, it assumes a dominion scarcely less full and 
complete than under the Christian Emperors. Charle- 
magne, in his imperial edicts, is at once the legislator 
of the Church and of the State. 

Thus then in Christendom there are three systems of 
jurisprudence, the Roman Law, the Barbaric pyre sys- 
or Teutonic Law, the Law of the Church— *™* #™ 
this last, as yet but young, humble and limited in its 
pretensions, a discipline rather than a law, or confined, 
in a great degree, to the special observance of the cler- 


I. The Emperor Justinian, having now reunited the 
Eastern and Western Empires, aspired to be 5, .4inian 
the legislator of the world; on Christendom °°" 
and on the Roman Empire, according to his notions com- 
mensurate, he would bestow a full, complete, indefeasible 
Code of Law. Of the barbaric codes, if even in their 
initiatory growth or existence, the Roman law, which 
still held the whole Roman world to be its proper 
dominion, would be as disdainfully ignorant, as if they 
were yet the usages of wild tribes beyond the Rhine 
or the Danube. Even over the Church or Canoni- 
cal Jurisprudence it would assert, as will immedi- 
ately appear, majestic superiority ; it would admit, con- 


484 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


firm, sanction such parts as might demand the supreme 
imperial intervention, or require imperial authority. 
Justinian aspired to consolidate in his eternal legisla- 
Necessity for tion all the ancient and modern statutes of 
consolidation : 
of laws. the realm. The necessity for a complete and 
final revisal — an authoritative reconstruction and har- 
mony of the vast mass of republican, senatorial, impe- 
rial decrees, or those accredited interpretations of the 
law which had become law, and were admitted in the 
courts of justice — had long been acknowledged. The 
Roman jurisprudence must become a Code; the decis- 
ions of the great lawyers must be selected, distributed 
under proper heads, and rules be laid down for the 
superiority of some over others. This jurisprudence 
comprehended unwritten as well as written law. The 
unwritten were the ancient Roman traditions, and the 
principles of eternal justice. The sources of the writ- 
ten law were the XII Tables, the Laws of the Repub- 
lic, whether Senatus-Consults or Plebiscites, the de- 
crees of the Emperors, the edicts of the Preetors, and 
the answers of the learned in the law.1 Already at- 
tempts had been made to systematize this vast, multifa- 
rious, and comprehensive jurisprudence in the Grego- 
rian, Hermogenian, and finally the Theodosian codes. 
But the enormous mass of laws which had still accu- 
mulated, the conflicting decisions of the lawyers, the 
oppugnance of the laws themselves, seemed to demand 
this ultimate organization of the whole; and in Tri- 
bonian and his Byzantine lawyers, Justinian supposed 
that he possessed the wisdom, in himself the power 
and authority, to establish forever the jurisprudence 
of Rome. 


1 Responsa prudentum. 


Crap. V. CODE OF JUSTINIAN. 485 


But the change which has come over the Roman 
Empire is manifest at once. That Justinian Justinian a 
is a Christian Emperor appears in the front of Ἡξήρθυν 
his jurisprudence. Before the august temple of the 
Roman law, there is, as it were, a vestibule, in which 
the Emperor seats himself as the religious legislator of 
the world in its new relation towards God. The Chris- 
tian Emperor treats all mankind as his subjects, in their 
religious as well as in their civil capacity. The Emper- 
or’s creed, as well as his edicts, is the universal law of the 
Empire. That which was accessory in the code of the 
former Christian Emperors, and in the Theodosian code 
fills two supplementary books, stands in the front, and 
forms the Preface to that of Justinian. Huis code opens 
with the Imperial Creed on the Trinity, and the Impe- 
rial Anathema against Nestorius, Eutyches, Apollina- 
ris. Justinian declares indeed that he holds the doc- 
trine of the Church, of the Apostles and their succes- 
sors. He recognizes the authority of the four great 
Councils. He even acknowledges the supremacy of 
the Roman Church, and commands all Churches to be 
united with her. At the time of the publication of the 
code, John III. was Bishop of Rome ; but he had been 
appointed under the Exarch, his inauguration had sub- 
missively awaited the Emperor’s approbation. Rome 
therefore, it was hoped, had become, notwithstanding 
the rapid advance of the Lombards, an integral, an in- 
separable part of the Empire. Justinian legislates 
therefore for Rome as for the East. But though the 
Emperor condescends thus to justify the orthodoxy of 
his creed, it is altogether of his absolute, uncontrolled, 
undisputed will that it is law. It might seem indeed 
that the clergy were the subjects, as first in rank, 


480 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


whose offices, even whose lives, must first be regulated 
by imperial legislation. 

In the following chapters the appointment, the organi- 
zation, the subordination, the authority of the ecclesias- 
Laws for the tical, as of the civil magistrates of the realm, 

lergy- is assumed to emanate from, to be granted, 
limited, prescribed by, the supreme Emperor. Excom- 
munication is uttered indeed by the ecclesiastics, but 
according to the imperial laws and with the imperial 
warrant. He deigns indeed to allow the canons of the 
Church to be of not less equal authority than his laws ; 
but his laws are divine, and those divine laws all met- 
ropolitans, bishops, and clergy are bound to obey, and, 
if commanded, to publish. The hierarchy is regulated 
by his ordinance. He enacts the superiority of the 
Metropolitan over the bishop, of the bishop over the 
abbot, of the abbot over the monk. Distinct imperial 
laws rule the monasteries. The law prescribes the or- 
dinations of bishops, the persons qualified for ordina- 
tion,? the whole form and process of that holy ceremo- 
ny. The law admitted no immunities in the Clergy for 
crimes committed against the state and against society. 
It took upon itself the severe superintendence of cler- 
ical morals. The passion for theatrical amusements, 
for the wild excitement of the horse-race and the com- 
bat with wild beasts, or even more licentious entertain- 
ments, had carried away many of the clergy, even of 
the bishops. A law, more than once reénacted and 
modified, while it acknowledged the power of the cler- 

1 Τοὺς δὲ ϑειοὺς κανόνας οὐκ ἔλαττον τῶν νόμων ἰσχύειν Kal οἱ ἡμέτεροι 
βούλονται νόμοι. ---- Οοᾶ. ii. 8, 44. They are to publish τὸν ϑεῖον ἡμῶν 
τοῦτον νόμον . ---- Cod. ii. 8, 48. 


2 Especially Noy. cxxiii.; it assesses the fees to be paid on each promo- 
tion. 


Cuapr. V. LAWS FOR THE CLERGY. 487 


gy’s prayers to obtain victory over the barbarians, and 
to obtain from Heaven extended empire, declared that 
for this reason they should be unimpeachable, But, 
notwithstanding the most solemn admonition, they 
could not be persuaded, not even the bishops, to ab- 
stain from the gaming-table, or the theatre with all its 
blasphemies and license. The Emperor was compelled 
to pass this law, prohibiting, under pain of suspension 
for the first offence, of irrevocable degradation and ser- 
vitude 1 to the public corporations, any one of the cler- 
gy, of any rank, from being present at the gaming-table 
or at any public spectacle. These penalties, with other 
religious punishments, as fastings, were to be inflicted, 
according to the rank of the offender, by the bishop or 
the metropolitan. The refusal to punish, or the en- 
deavor to conceal, such offences made both the civil of- 
ficers and ecclesiastics liable to civil as well as to eccle- 
siastical penalties. 

The Bishop was an imperial officer for certain tem- 
poral affairs. In each city he was appointed, with 
three of the chief citizens, annually to inspect the pub- 
lic accounts, and all possessions or bequests made for 
public works, markets, aqueducts, baths, walls and 
gates, and bridges. Before him guardians of lunatics 
swore on the Gospels to administer their trust with 
fidelity,2 and many legal acts might be performed 
either in the presence of the Defensor or the bishop 
of the city.2 For the discharge of these temporal 
functions the bishops were reasonably answerable to 
the Emperor; and thus the empire acknowledged at 


1 Δουλεύειν. ---- Cod. i. 14, 34. 
2 Cod. i. 4, 27. 
8 De Episcop. Audient. 


488 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


the inspiration of Christianity a new order of magis- 
tracy. 

‘The law limited the number of clergy to be attached 
to each Church. This constitution was demanded in 
order to check that multiplication of the clergy which 
exhausted the revenues of the Church, and led to bur- 
densome debts. In the great Church at Constanti- 
nople the numbers were to be reduced to 425, besides 
100 ostiarii! The smaller churches were on no ac- 
count to have more than they could maintain. 

The State issued laws for the regulation of monas- 
teries. None were to be established without the con- 
sent of the Bishop. The Bishop elected the superior 
from the community. Slaves might be admitted as 
well as freemen. A probation of three years was 
required from all. A slave, if a runaway or thief, 
might be claimed by his master during those three 
years. When a monk, he could no longer be claimed, 
unless he abandoned the monastic life. All were to 
live in common, to sleep in one chamber. If a monk 
wished to leave his monastery he went forth a beggar ; 
the monastery retained all his property. If he entered 
into the army, it could only be into the lowest rank. 
No monk could leave one monastery for another.? 

1 60 presbyters, 100 male 40 female deacons, 90 subdeacons, 110 readers, 
25 singers. — Novell. iii. There is a curious law concerning interments in 
Constantinople. 1000 shops, or their rent, seem to have been bestowed on 
the church for the burial of the poor; they had a bier and the attendance 
of the clergy without charge. The rich paid according to their means and 
will; there was a fixed payment for certain more splendid biers and more 
solemn attendance. — Novell. xciii. 

2 The Institutes acknowledge the Bishop, with the Defensor, to have cer- 
tain powers of appointing guardians. —i. 20,5. Justinian speaks of the 
modesty of his times. — i. 22, 1. Two clauses (2, i. 8, 9) relate to churches, 


&c., iii. 28, 7. Churches named. — iv. 18, 8. Rape of nuns made a capi- 
tal crime. 


Cnap. V. NATURE OF ROMAN LAW. 489 


Such were the all-comprehending ecclesiastical laws 
which the Emperor claimed the power to enact. In 
many cases he commanded or limited the anathema or 
the interdict. The obedient world, including the 
Church, acknowledged, at least by submissive obedi- 
ence, this imperial supremacy. 

It is not till Justinian has thus, as it were, fulfilled 
his divine mission of legislating for his subjects as 
Christians, that he assumes his proper function, his leg- 
islation for them as Romans, and proceeds to his earthly 
task, the consolidation of the ancient and modern stat- 
utes of the Empire. 

But the legislation of Justinian, as far as it was orig- 
inal, in his Code, his Pandects, and in his Institu- 
tions, within its civil domain, was still almost Roman law 

3 - purely 
exclusively Roman. It might seem that Roman. 
Christianity could hardly penetrate into the solid and 
well-compacted body of Roman law; or rather, the 
immutable principles of justice had been so clearly dis- 
cerned by the inflexible rectitude of the Roman mind, 
so sagaciously applied by the wisdom of her great law- 
yers, that Christianity was content to acquiesce in those 
statutes, which even she might, excepting in some re- 
spects, despair of rendering more equitable. Chris- 
tianity, in the Roman Empire, had entered into a tem- 
poral polity, with all its institutions long settled, its 
laws already framed. The Christians had in their 
primitive state no natural place in the order of things. 
That separate authority which the Church exercised 
over the members of its own community from its ori- 
gin, and without which the loosest form of society can- 
not subsist, was in no way recognized by the civil 
power ; they were the voluntary laws of a voluntary 


490 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


association. But, besides these special laws of their 
own, the Christians were in every respect subjects of 
the Empire. They were strangers in religion alone. 
After the comprehensive decree of Caracalla, they, like 
the rest of mankind within the pale of the Empire, 
became Roman citizens; and the supremacy of the 
State in all things which did not concern the vital prin- 
ciples of their religion (for which they were still bound, 
if the civil power should exercise compulsion, to suffer 
martyrdom) was acknowledged, both in the West and 
in the East, both before and after the conversion of 
Constantine. 

The influence therefore of Christianity on the older 
laws of the Roman Empire could only be exercised 
through the mind of the legislator, now become Chris- 
tian ; and the general moral sentiment, which became 
more pure or elevated, might modify, and gradually 
mitigate, some provisions, or more rigidly enforce cer- 
tain obligations. The Roman law, in its original code, 
might seem indeed to take a pride in resting upon: its 
antiquity and its purely Roman character; it admits 
not the language, it appears even to affect a supercil- 
ious ignorance of the religion, of the people.t In the 
Institutes of Justinian? it requires keen observation to 
detect the Christianity of the legislator. Tribonian, 
the great lawyer, to whom the vast work of framing 
the whole jurisprudence was committed by the Em- 


1 There are several quotations from Homer, not one allusion to any of 
the sacred writings of Christianity. 

2 The Institutes are without those prefatory chapters of Christian legisla- 
tion contained in the Code. From those chapters we pass into the Roman 
Code, as into another land; and it demands our closest attention to discern 
how far, now that he has abandoned all the language of Christianity, the 
spirit of the religion follows the emperor into the ancient realm. 


ἀπο ον ες 


Cuar. V. LAW OF PERSONS. 491 


peror, has incurred the suspicion of atheism, an accusa- 
tion which, just or not, is strong evidence that his work 
had refused to incorporate any of the statutes, and bore 
no signs of Christianity. The prefatory Christian laws, 
though now become fundamental, are altogether extra- 
neous to the old reénacted system. They are recorded 
laws before Tribonian assumes his functions. 

The Roman Law may be most conveniently consid- 
ered, in connection with the influence of Christianity, 
as it regards A. Persons; B. Property; and C. 
Crime.! 

A. The law as regards Persons comprehends the 
ranks and divisions, and the relations of mankind to 
each other, sanctioned or recognized by the pay of per- 
law, with the privileges, rights, and immuni- *"* 
ties it may grant, the duties it may impose on each. 
In nothing is the stern and Roman character of the 
Justinian Code more manifest than in its full preomen 
recognition of slavery. Throughout, the broad *™¢°""* 
distinction of mankind into freemen and slaves is the 
unquestioned, admitted groundwork of legislation. It 
declares indeed the natural equality of man, and so far 
is in advance of the doctrine which prevailed in the 
time of Aristotle, and is vindicated by that philosopher, 
that certain races or classes of men are pronounced by 
the unanswerable voice of nature, by their physical and 
intellectual inferiority, as designed for and irrevocably 
doomed to servitude. But this natural equality is ab- 
solutely and entirely forfeited by certain acknowledged 
disqualifications for freedom, by captivity in war, self 


1 This in some degree differs from the division adopted by many writers 
from the Institutes of Justinian, under which the criminal law ranks as a 
yranch of the law of actions or obligations. 


492 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


vendition into slavery, or servile descent. Christianity 
had indeed exalted the slave to spiritual equality, as 
having the same title to the blessings, consolations, and 
promises of the Gospel, as capable of practising all 
Christian virtues, and therefore of obtaining the Chris- 
tian’s reward. ‘This religious elevation could not be 
without influence, besides the more generous humanity 
to which it would soften the master, on their temporal 
and social position. It took them out of the class of 
brute beasts or inanimate things, to be transferred like 
cattle or other goods from one master to another, which 
the owner might damage or destroy with as much im- 
punity as any other property ; and placed them in that 
of human beings, equally under the care of Divine 
Providence, and gifted with the same immortality. 
But the legislation of the Christian Emperor went no 
further. It makes no claim to higher humanity; it 
does not attempt to despoil the pagan Emperors of the 
praise due to the first step made in that direction. It 
ascribes to the heathen sovereign, Antoninus, the great 
change which had placed the life of the slave under the 
protection of the law. Even his punishment was then 
restricted by legislative enactment.!_ But the abroga- 
tion of slavery was not contemplated even as a remote 
possibility. A general enfranchisement seems never to 
have dawned on the wisest and best of the Christian 
writers, notwithstanding the greater facility for manu- 
mission, and the sanctity, as it were, assigned to the act 
by Constantine, by placing it under the special superin- 
tendence of the clergy. 

The law of Justinian gave indeed, or recognized, a 


1 Caius, i. 538; Just. Instit. i. viii. 2. Constantine, in 312, had enlarged 
this law. —C. Theod. de emend. sery., 1. 9, 1. 


Cuap. V. LAW OF SLAVERY. 493 


greater value in the life of the slave. The fay of 
edict of Antoninus had declared the master ὅτ. 
who killed his own slave without cause, liable to the 
same penalty as if he killed the slave of another.! 
The Code of Justinian ratified the law of Constantine, 
which made it homicide to kill a slave with malice 
aforethought ; and it describes certain modes of barbar- 
ous punishment, by which, if death follows, that guilt 
is incurred.2, The Code confirms the law of Claudius 
against the abandonment of sick and useless slaves; it 
enjoins the master to send them to the public hospitals. 
These hospitals were open to slaves as well as to poor 
freemen. ‘‘In these times, and under our empire,” 
writes Justinian, “‘no one must be permitted to exer- 
cise unlawful cruelty against a slave.” The motive, 
however, for this was not evangelic humanity, but the 
public good, which was infringed if any man ill-used 
his property.® 

But while it protected the life, to a certain extent 
the person, of the slave, it asserted as sternly as ever 
his inferior condition. He was the property of his 
master. Whoever became a slave lost all power over 
his children. His testimony could be received against 
his master only in cases of high treason. His union 
with his wife was still only concubinage, not mar- 
riage.© The slave had no remedy for adultery before 
the tribunals; it was left to the master to punish the 
offence. A free woman who had unlawful connection 


1 Caius, i. 53. 

2 Cod. Just. ix. 14. 

8“ Expedit enim reipublice, ne quis 76 sud utatur male.’’ — Instit. i. 
viii. 

4 Instit. i. 16, and ii. 9,3. Cod. ix. 1, 20. 

5 Contubernium, not connubium. 


494 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


with her slave, according to the law of Constantine, 
not, as it seems, repealed by Justinian, was to be put 
to death, the slave to be burned alive. But the law 
of Constantine, confirmed in the West by Anthemius, 
which prohibited the union of a freeman and a slave, 
at least a freeman of a certain rank, under the penalty 
of exile and confiscation of goods, and condemned the 
female to the mines, appears to have been mitigated ; 
at least the law of Claudius, which condemned the 
free-woman who married a slave to servitude, was tem- 
pered to a sentence of separation. In the old Roman 
society in the Eastern Empire this distinction between 
the marriage of the freeman and the concubinage of 
the slave was long recognized by Christianity itself. 
These unions were not blessed, as the marriages of 
their superiors had soon begun to be, by the Church.* 
Basil the Macedonian? first enacted that the priestly 
benediction should hallow the marriage of the slave ; 
but the authority of the Emperor was counteracted 
by the deep-rooted prejudices of centuries. Later laws 
appear to have attempted the reconcilement of the 
Christian privilege with the social distinction. The 
marriages of slaves were to be celebrated in the 
Church ; slaves and freemen were to receive the same 
nuptial benediction, without conferring freedom on the 
slave.2 As late as the thirteenth century a mandate of 
Nicetas, archbishop of Thessalonica, excommunicates 
masters who refuse to allow their slaves to be married 
in the Church. 


1 It was thought that the marriage before the church would of itself con- 
fer civil freedom. — Biot, sur l’Esclavage, p. 146. 

2 a.p. 867-886. 

8 Constitut. Imp. xi. Jus Gr. Roman. i. p. 145. Biot, p. 218. 


Crap. V. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 495 


The trade in slaves was still a principal and recog- 
nized branch of commerce. Man was a mar- Slave-trade. 
ketable commodity. The whole code of Justinian 
speaks of the slave as bearing a certain appreciable 
value, to be held by the same tenure, transferred by 
the same form, as other property. It was the weak- 
ness of Rome, not her humanity or her Christianity, 
which, by ceasing to supply the markets with hordes 
of conquered barbarians, diminished the trade; and 
Roman citizens were sold, with utter disregard of 
their haughty privileges, by barbarian or J ewish slave- 
venders. Throughout Greek and Latin Christendom, 
however the Church, by its precept and example, 
might rank the redemption of Christian slaves from 
bondage as a high virtue, the purchase and the sale 
of men, as property transferred from vendor to buyer, 
was recognized as a legal transaction of the same valid- 
ity with the sale of other property, land, or cattle. 

The Christian family, in its more restricted sense, 
comprehending the relations of husband and »,, christian 
wife, of parent and children, had been the puby 
centre from which the Gospel worked outwards with 
all its beneficent energy on society. But Christianity, 
conscious of its more profound and extensive influence 
on morals, was in most respects content to rest without 
intruding into the province of laws.1_ It superadded 
its own sanctity to the dignity with which marriage 
had been arrayed by the older Roman law: it super- 
added its own tenderness to that mitigation of parental 
the arbitrary parental power with which the?" 


1 See throughout this chapter—the Codes, Pandects, and Institutes. Of 
modern works, Gibbon’s celebrated chapter, with Warnkonig’s notes; Fer- 
dinand Walter, Geschichte des Rémischen Rechts, pp. 332 et seg. 


400 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book III. 


more humane habits of later times, and the wisdom 
of the great lawyers, had controlled the despotism of 
the Roman father. The Roman definition of marriage 
Marriage. might almost satisfy the lofty demands of 
Christianity. Matrimony is the union of man and 
woman, constraining them to an inseparable cohabita- 
tion.1 Polygamy had been prohibited by the Praeto- 
rian Edict with a distinct severity not to be found in 
the New Testament.2 Marriage, in the oldest Roman 
law, was a religious rite. The purchase of the wife, 
the partaking of food together,? took place in the pres- 
ence of the pontiffs. These ceremonials were at no 
time absolutely necessary ; but even, under the Repub- 
lic, marriage was altogether, as to its validity, a civil 
contract. With the Christians marriage had resumed 
a more solemn religious character. Certain forms of 
espousals or of wedlock are among the most unques- 
tionable usages of the earliest Christian antiquity. On 
marriage the Christian is taught to take counsel of the 
bishop. Some kind of benediction in the Church, or 


1“ Nuptia autem sive matrimonium est viri et mulieris conjunctio, indi- 
viduam vite consuetudinem continens.’’ — Instit. i. ix. 1. 

2 “Neminem qui sub ditione sit Romani nominis binas uxores habere 
posse vulgo patet; cum etiam in Edicto Pretoris hujusmodi viri infamia 
notati sint: quam rem competens judex inultam esse non patietur.” — Cod. 
y. tit. 5,2. The silence of the New Testament as to polygamy, excepting 
in the doubtful text about the bishop, has been the subject of much learned 
contest and inquiry. The desuetude into which it had fallen among the 
Jews, and its prohibition by Roman manners, if not by Roman laws, ac- 
counts for this silence, in my opinion most fully, considering the popular 
character of our Lord’s teaching and that of his apostles. 

8 Coemptio et confarreatio. — The confarreatio was the more solemn form 
of marriage, and could only be annulled by certain tremendous rites, which 
represented as it were the death of the contracting parties. — Festus, Defar- 
reatio. It had fallen into disuse with the extinction of the older families. 
The other two forms of marriage-contract were coemptio and usus. 

4 Ignat. Epist. ad Polycarp. This passage is found in Mr. Cureton’s 
Syriac version. , 


Cuar. V. MARRIAGE. 497 


in the presence of the community, gave its peculiar 
holiness to the marriage ceremony.’ Christianity did 
not decline some of the gayer and more innocent usages 
of Jewish and heathen marriages — the crowns, the ring, 
the veil of the virgin. Still, the Christian might hal- 
low his union by the benediction of the Church; the 
betrothal or the espousals might take place in the pres- 
ence of the religious community ;? yet the Roman 
citizen was bound only by the civil contract. On this 
alone depended the validity of the marriage, the legit- 
imacy and right of succession in the children. The 
Church, or the clergy representing the Church, had no 
jurisdiction in matrimonial questions till after the legis- 
lation of Justinian. It was never perfect and supreme 
in the East; in the West it grew up gradually with 
the all-absorbing sacerdotal power. 

As to incestuous marriages, marriages within the 
more intimate degrees of relationship, Christianity 
might repose upon the rigor of the Roman pyonivitea 
law.3 There was no necessity to recur to “8° 
the books of Moses. That law prohibited the union 
of brothers with sisters, of uncles and aunts with neph- 
ews and nieces: it did not proscribe that of cousins 
german.’ The Roman law extended this prohibition 

1 Tertull. ad Uxor. ii. ο. 2-9; de Monogam. ο. 11. ‘ Unde sufficiamus 
ad enarrandam felicitatem ejus matrimonii, quod ecclesia conciliat, et con- 
firmat oblatio, et obsignat benedictio,” &c. &c.: compare Augusti, Denk- 
wiirdigkeiten, x. p. 288. 


2 This was a voluntary rite, superinduced by Christian manners upon the 
law of the realm. 

8 On forbidden marriages, Gaius i. 58-62; Ulpian, y. 6; Collat. Leg. 
Mosaic. vi. 4-17; J. C. de Nupt. 5, 4, 1 to 5. 

4 Plutarch, Quest. Rom. 6; Cicer. pro Cluent. 5; Capitol. M. Antonin. 
The Emperors Arcadius and Honorius married their cousins. Instit. i. x. 
The old law (Caius, Instit. p. 27) allowed a man to marry his niece on the 
brother’s, not on the sister’s, side. The Emperor Claudius availed himself 


VOL. I. 32 


408 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book III. 


to connections formed by affinity and by adoption. 
Connections formed by marriage were as sacred as 
those of natural kindred, and an union with an adopted 
brother or sister was as inflexibly forbidden as in the 
ease of blood. 

But of the few passages in the Code of Justinian 
which reveal the Christian legislator, that 
extraordinary one stands out in peculiar con- 
trast, which extends the prohibited degrees to spiritual 
relationship. But the manner, almost as it were fur- 
tive, in which this prohibition is introduced, shows how 
it grew out of the existing state of Roman feeling. 
The jealous law had prohibited, besides the incestuous 
degrees of relationship, the union of a guardian, or the 
son of a guardian, with his ward! But a man might 
marry an alumna whom he had educated as a slave, 
but to whom he had afterwards granted liberty.? The 
education as a slave implied that he had not towards 
her the affection of a parent. No one, however, would 
be so impious as to marry one whom he had brought 
up in his house as a daughter. On this principle it 
was that, whether brought up in his family or not, the 
sponsorship in baptism implied an affection so tender 
and parental as to render such a marriage unholy. 


Spiritual re- 
lationships. 


of this privilege. The Roman law, in fact, was not greatly extended by the 
canon law, the prohibitory degrees of which are summed up in these lines,— 
Nata, soror, neptis, matertera patris, et uxor, 
Et patrui conjux, mater, privigni, noverca, 
Uxorisque soror, privigni nata, nurusque, 
Atque soror patris conjungi lege vetantur. 

1 Cod. Justin. v. 6, 1 et 7. 

2 Cod. Justin. v. 4, 26. There were other civil prohibitions: marriage of 
freeman with slave (see above), with a freed man or woman, by the Julian 
law confined to senators and their children (Inst. 16, de Sponsal.; Justinian 
Cod. de Nupt. 28, 5, 4), of senators with actors (Ulpian, xiii. 1, xvi. 2) or 
persons of infamous occupations, &c. &c. —See Walter, p. 539. 


Cuap. V. MARRIAGE. 499 


Roman pride and rigid Christian morality would 
concur in some of those prohibitions which interdicted 
free Romans from certain degrading or disreputable 
marriages. There could be no marriages with slaves: 
children born from that concubinage were servile. 
The Emperor Valentinian further defined low and ab- 
ject persons who might not aspire to lawful union with 
freemen — actresses, daughters of actresses, tavern- 
keepers, the daughters of tavern-keepers, procurers 
(lenones) or gladiators, or those who had kept a public 
shop.! 

The Roman law had gradually expanded from that 
exclusive patrician haughtiness which would not recog- 
nize the marriage with plebeians: it had admitted unions 
between all of Roman birth; but till Roman citizen- 
ship had been imparted to the whole Roman Empire, 
it would not acknowledge marriage with barbarians to 
be more than concubinage. Cleopatra was called only 
in scorn the wife of Antony. Berenice might not pre- 
sume to be more than the mistress of Titus. The 
Christian world closed marriages again within still 
more and more jealous limits. Interdictory statutes 
declared marriages with Jews and heathens not only 
invalid but adulterous. The Councils condemned mar- 
riages with heretics in terms almost of equal rigor. 
The legislature was silent ; though Manicheans espe- 
cially, being outcasts by the law, marriages with them 
must have been of questionable validity.? 


1 All this, however, was in the spirit of the ancient Roman law. 

2 Cod. Theodos. iii. 7, 2, ix. 7, 5, xvi. viii. 6; Cod. Justin. i. 9,6. These 
laws, in the time of Augustine and Jerome, were by no means unnecessary. 
“ At nunc plereeque contemnentes apostoli jussionem, junguntur gentilibus 
et templa Christi idolis prostituunt, nec intelligunt se corporis ejus partem 
esse cujus et coste sunt.”” —Hieron. In Jovin. i. 10: compare Augustin. 


500 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


Yet, however lofty the theory of the Roman lawyers 
Divorce. as to the sanctity and perpetual obligation of 
marriage, it was practically annulled by the admitted 
right and by the inveterate usage of divorce. It was 
a contract which either party might dissolve, almost 
without alleged cause. In the older law, the wife 
being, like the rest of his family, the property of the 
husband, he might dismiss her at any time from his 
service. Even the law of the Twelve Tables admitted 
divorce. But the severer morals of the older Repub- 
lic disdained to assert this privilege. The sixth cen- 
tury of Roman greatness is said to have begun, before 
the public feeling was shocked by the repudiation of a 
virtuous but barren wife by Spurius Carvilius Ruga.! 
But in the later Republic the frequency of divorce was 
at once the sign, the cause, and the consequence of the 
rapid depravation of morals. Paulus Aimilius dis- 
carded the beautiful Papiria with a scornful refusal to 
assion any reason.? Cato, Cicero, exchanged or dis- 
missed their wives. And the wives were not behind 
their husbands in vindicating their equal rights. Paula 
Valeria repudiated her husband without cause to be- 
come the wife of Decimus Brutus.? Augustus might 
endeavor by laws and by immunities to compel or allure 
the reluctant aristocracy of Rome to marriage; he 
might limit divorce by statute: * but his example more 
de fid. et oper. c. 19. They gradually, as heathenism expired, became less 
denunciatory against such marriages, but maintained and even increased 
their rigor against Jewish connections. — Concil. Laodic. x.; but add 
xxxi.; Concil. Agath. lxvii.; Concil. Arelat. xi.; Iliber. xvi. xvii. 


1 Dion. Hal. ii. 98; Val. Max. ii. 1; Aulus Gellius. iv. 3. Plutarch in 
Numa. 


2 “ My shoes are new and well-made, but no one knows where they pinch 
me.’’ — Plutarch. Vit. Paul. mil. 
3 Cic. ad Fam. 4 See the lex Papia Poppxa. 


Cuap. V. DIVORCE. 501 


powerfully counteracted his own laws. He compelled 
the husband of Livia to divorce her during a state of 
pregnancy, and by marrying her became the father of 
a doubtful offspring. Mzecenas changed his wives as 
he changed his dress.' Seneca, in his lofty Stoic moral- 
ity, declares that the noble women of Rome calculated 
the year not by the Consuls, but by their husbands.? 
Juvenal, in the bitterness of his satire, might describe 
the husband discarding his wife for the slightest infirm- 
ity;® Martial might point an epigram against these 
legal adulteries;4 and all these writers might dwell, 
and with licensed exaggeration, only, or principally, on 
the manners of the capital and those of the higher 
orders ; but throughout the Roman world there can be 
no doubt that this dissolution of those bonds which 
unite the family was the corroding plague of Roman 
society. Christianity must have subjugated public 
feeling to a great extent; it must have overawed, and 
softened, and rendered attractive the marriage state by 
countless examples in every part of the Empire (like 
that so beautifully described by: Tertullian),° far more 
than by its monastic notions of the superior dignity of 
virginity, before even Constantine could venture on his 
prohibitory law against divorce. Marriage was abso- 
lutely annulled by three causes, retirement to a monas- 


1 “Qui uxorem millies duxit.”” Such is the hyperbole of Seneca, who 
hated, perhaps because he envied, the memory of Mecenas. “ Quotidiana 
repudia.’’ — De Provid. ec. 3. 

2 Senec. de Beuef. iii. 16. 

8 Conlige sarcinulas, dicet libertus, et exi; 
Jam gravis es nobis, et sepe emungeris; exi 
Ocius et propera: sicco venit altera naso. 
Sat. vi. 146. 
4 “ Que nubit toties, non nubit, adultera lege est.’”’ — vi. 7. 
5 Ad uxor. ii. c. 9. 


502 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book II. 


tic life, impotence, and captivity. The period at which 
captivity dissolved the tie, and permitted the husband 
or the wife to marry again, was differently defined in 
successive statutes. The divorce law of Constantine 
limited repudiation to three causes: against the hus- 
band, if he was a homicide, a magician, a violator of 
tombs.! In either of these cases the wife recovered 
her dowry. If she sued for a divorce for any other 
cause, she forfeited her dowry, her jewels, even to the 
bodkin of her hair, and was sentenced to deportation 
into a desert island. Against the wife the three crimes 
were adultery, witchcraft, or acting as procuress. If 
the husband repudiated her for one of these causes he 
retained the dowry; if for any other the penalty was 
the forfeiture of the dowry. If he married again, the 
repudiated wife might enter his house and seize the 
dowry of the new bride. But the severity of this law 
was mitigated by Honorius,? its penalties abrogated by 
Theodosius the younger. This law, which 15 recited 
in the Code and in the Novell of Justinian, adds to 
the causes which justify divorce: on the part of the 
wife, if the husband is guilty of adultery, high treason, 
or forgery, sacrilege, pillage of churches, robbery or 
harboring robbers, cattle-driving, man-stealing, hav- 
ing, to the disgrace of his family, connection with loose 
women in the sight of his wife, attempting her life by 
poison or violence, or scourging her in a manner insup- 
portable to a freewoman. On the part of the husband, 
besides all these, frequenting the banquets of strangers 
without his knowledge or consent, passing the night 


1 Cod. Theod. de repud. iii. xvi. 
2 Novell. xvii. de repudiis ad calc. cod. Theodos. Ritter observes that 
the constitutions were not annulled by this edict, only the penalties. 


Cuap. V. CONCUBINAGE. 503 


abroad without just cause or permission, or indulging 
im the Circus, the theatre, or the amphitheatre, without 
his leave.? 

The legislation of Justinian is obviously embarrassed 
with the difficulty of the question of repudiation : it 
reénacts, but with some hesitation, the severe statutes 
of Theodosius: a succession of new laws explains, re- 
stricts, or confirms the plainer language of the Code. 
Justinian, indeed, first extended the penalties of the 
laws against divorce to cases of marriage without 
dower: if the husband repudiated an undowered wife 
without just cause, he forfeited to her one fourth of his 
property.2, But the successor of Justinian was com- 
pelled to sweep away all these provisions, and to re- 
store the liberty of divorce by mutual consent. The 
Emperor, as the law declares, was beset by complaints 
and remonstrances, that inextinguishable hatred was im- 
planted in families by these restrictions, that secret 
poisonings would become common: he resisted long, 
but was compelled to yield to the general clamor. The 
manners of Constantinople, perhaps of the Roman 
world, triumphed over the severer authority of the 
Church. 

Concubinage, a kind of inferior marriage, of which 
the issue were natural children not bastards, Concubinage. 
had been, to a certain extent, legalized by Augustus. 
The Christian Emperors endeavored to give something 
of the dignity of legitimate marriage to this union, by 
enlarging the rights of natural children to succession ; 
but in the East it was not abolished, as a legal union, 


1 Cod. v. xvii.; Pandects, xxiv. ii.; Novella, xxii. cxvii. cxxxiv. The 
Institutes avoid the subject. 

2 Cod. v. xvii. ii. To the first causes were added, endeavor to procure 
abortion, and indecent bathing in the public baths with men. 


504 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book III. 


till the time of Leo the Philosopher; in the West it 
was perpetuated by the pride of the conquering races, 
and in some respects by the practice of the clergy them- 
selves to a much later period. 

That primeval constitution of Roman society, which 
Parental made each family a little state, with its pe 
Ls culiar sacrifices and peculiar jurisdiction, of 
which the father was Priest and King, had long fallen 
into disuse. The parental power, in theory absolute, 
had been limited by public feeling and long desuetude. 
Even under the old republic, Brutus and Manlius were 
magistrates and generals as well as fathers ; the execu- 
tion of their sons was a sacrifice to Roman liberty and 
to Roman discipline, not an exertion of parental author- 
ity. Erixo,a Roman knight in the time of Seneca, 
whose son died under his chastisement, was pursued 
through the forum by the infuriated people.? Alexan- 
der Severus limited the parental power by law. It was 
well perhaps for human nature that this change had 
taken place before the promulgation of Christianity. 
It was spared those domestic martyrdoms which might 
have taken place in many families. For that which 
the divine wisdom of its founder had foreshown was 
inevitable. Youth, in its prospective ardor, would be 
more prone to accept the new religion, than age, rig- 
idly attached to ancient and established usages. It is 
the constant reproach, with which the apologists of 
Christianity have to contend, that it nurtured filial dis- 
obedience, and taught children to revolt against the 
authority of parents.? But this conflict was over long 


1 Ducange, art. Concubina. 

2 Seneca de Clement. i. 14. 

3 Tertull. Apologet. c. 3; Origen contra Cels.; Hieronym. Epist. ad 
Letam. 


Cap. V. INFANTICIDE. 505 


before Christianity entered into Roman legislation. 
The life of the child was as sacred as that of the par- 
ent; and Constantine, when he branded the murder 
of a son with the name of parricide, hardly advanced 
upon the dominant feeling. Some power remained of 
moderate chastisement, but even this was liable to the 
control of law. Disinheritance remained the only pen- 
alty which the father could arbitrarily inflict upon the 
son; for by degrees that absolute possession of all the 
property of the son which of old belonged to the father 
had been limited. The peculium over which full power 
was vested in the son was extended by Augustus, Tra- 
jan, and Hadrian to all which he might acquire in 
military service, even to captives who became his 
slaves, to be disposed of by gift or will; by Constan- 
tine and later Emperors to all emoluments obtained in 
civil employments ; by Justinian to the inheritance, in 
certain cases, of the mother’s property. 

Infanticide was thus a crime by law, but the sale 
and exposure of children, the most obstinate Mmfanticide. 
vestige of the arbitrary parental power, aggravated 
by the increasing misery of the times, still contended 
with the humane severity of the laws, and the fervent 
denunciations of the Christian teachers.! The sale of 
children was prohibited by law, yet prevailed to late 
times. The Emperor Trajan had declared that a free- 
born child, exposed by its parents and brought up by a 
stranger, did not forfeit its liberty.2 The Christian 
Emperor first declared exposure of infants a crime :8 


1 Athenagor. Apologet. Tertullian, Apologet. 9; Lactantius, D. I. vi. 20. 

2 Pliny, Epist. x. 7. 

3 The Cod. Justin. iv. 43, 1, confirmed the declaration of the law by Dio- 
eletian. ‘ Liberos a parentibus neque venditionis neque donationis titulo, 
neque pignoris jure, aut alio quolibet modo, nec sub pretextu ignorantiz 


506 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


at the same time he declared the children of such poor 
parents as should be unable to nourish them, children 
of the state, to be clothed and supported by the pub- 
lic treasury. This vast poor law could not have 
been carried into effect, or was necessarily modified by 
new laws, providing for children thus exposed. The 
stranger who took up such child and maintained it, 
might, according to a law of Theodosius the Great, 
bring it up as his own son, or as his slave. The father 
who had exposed his child, having abandoned his 
paternal power, could not reclaim it; he, however, 
whe had sold his child through poverty might redeem 
it by paying the same price, or replacing it by another 
slave. But one of Justinian’s supplementary laws 
both shows the unrepressed frequency of the practice, 
and by its strong language the profound sense of its 
inhumanity. It was now the custom to leave the chil- 
dren not merely in the streets, but in the churches, in 
order, no doubt, to appeal to the kindness of the clergy 
and the more pious worshippers. If, says the law, 
worn-out slaves, who are exposed by their masters, 
obtain their freedom, how much the rather freeborn 
infants? But, as if aware that this was rather a 
penalty on the charitable person, who might undertake 
the care of such children (for whom it might be better 
to be brought up as slaves than left to perish), condign 
punishment is threatened, it is to be presumed the penal- 
ty for murder, against the guilty parties. It is probable, 
however, that the practices though not so clearly trace- 
accipientes, in alium transferri posse, manifestissimi juris est.’’ Yet in the 
life of Paphnutus by Jerome we read: “ Mihi est maritus qui fiscalis debiti 
gratia, suspensus est et flagellatus, ac poenis omnibus cruciatus, servatur in 


carcere. Tres autem nobis filii fuerunt, qui pro ejusdem debiti necessitate 
distracti sunt.” 


Cuap. V. LAW OF PROPERTY. 507 


able, expired but slowly in the East; in the West it still 
required the decrees of Councils and the edicts of soy- 
erelons to extir pate this per tinacious crime.! 

B. Christianity made no change in the tenure, or 
succession to property. The Ghivatian churches suc- 
ceeded to that sanctity which the ancient law pay of 
had attributed to the temples ; as soon as they PP" 
were consecrated they became public property, and 
could not be alienated to any other use. The ground 
itself was hallowed, and remained so even after the 
temple had been destroyed. This was an axiom of 
the heathen Papinian.? Gifts to temples were alike 
inalienable, nor could they be pledged ; the exception 
in the Justinian code betrays at once the decline of the 
Roman power, and the silent progress of Christian 
humanity. They could be sold or pledged for the 
redemption of captives, a purpose which the old Roman 
law would have disdained to contemplate.? The burial 
of the dead made ground holy. This consecration 

might be made by any private person; but a public 
pace τόκα became, in a certain sense, public prop- 
erty.4 

The great law of Constantine, which enabled the 


1 Capit. vi. c. 142; Decret. Gregor. de exposit. lib. ii. 971, 972, 978. 

2 Instit. ii. 1,8. Papinian lived under the reign of Severus. 

8 Property might be bequeathed in general terms for the redemption of 
captives. c. i. 3, 48. . 

4 Instit. ii. 1,9. If the owner gave consent, a body might be interred in 
any ground, mace thereby became sacred; if the owner afterwards wished 
to withdraw his consent, he could not: his right was lost in the sanctity of 
the ground. Paolo Sarpi supposes, but quotes no authority, that the 
churches had even before Constantine received lands by bequest, but con- 
trary to law. They were confiscated by Diocletian. The following is a law 
of Diocletian and Maximian, A.D. 290: “Collegium, si nullo speciali privi- 
‘egio subnixum sit, hereditatem capere non posse, dubium non est.’’ —C. 
8 de hered. instit.; Sarpi Opere, iv. 71. 


508 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. . Boox III. 


Christian churches to receive gifts and bequests, was 
but an extension or transference of the right belonging 
to heathen temples! and priesthoods, many of which 
were endowed with large estates.2 Even during the 
reion of Constantine some parts of the estates of the 
heathen temples were made over to the Christians ; but 
the private offerings of the faithful, by donation and by 
will, poured in with boundless prodigality. Already 
hzeridipety, seeking inheritances by undue means, 
is branded as an ecclesiastical vice by the severer 
teachers, and restrained by law ;? already the abuses of 
wealth begin to appear. The Apostolic Constitutions 
enact that the property of the bishop should be kept 
distinct from that of his see,t his own he may be- 
queath by will to his wife, his children, or other heirs ; 
the property of the Church is to descend sacred and 
inviolate. Already bishops are reproached, as too 
much involved in worldly affairs ; Councils declare that 
they must be relieved from the administration of the 
temporal concerns of their churches; a steward or 
ceconomus must be appointed in each church for this 
end.° The sovereigns, instead of endeavoring to set 
bounds to this tide of wealth which was setting into 
the Church, to the loss of the imperial exchequer, 
swelled it by their own munificence, as well as by the 


i A law in the Justinian code declares all gifts or bequests to heathen 
persons or places (7. 6. priests and temples) null and void. — Leo. 1. 11, 9. 

2 On the church property of the ancients see the curious passage in Ap- 
pian. During the pressure of fhe Mithridatic war, Sylla sold as much of 
the property devoted to sacrifices as produced 9000 pounds of gold. — De 
Bello Mithrid., c. xxii. 

8 Hieronymus in Nepot., Epist. xxxiv. The law of Valentinian. See 
page 68. 

4 Apostol. Constit. can. 33. 

5 Chrys. Hom. lxxxvi. in Matheum. Concil. Antioch. Synod. Chalced. 
can. 26. 


Crap. V. CHURCH PROPERTY. 509 


tenor of their laws. They dared not incur the re- 
proach at once of want of respect to the clergy, of 
parsimony to the poor, of stinting the magnificence 
of the edifices, now everywhere rising for the honor of 
God. These were the three acknowledged purposes to 
which were devoted the ecclesiastical revenues. 

The legislation of Justinian confirmed all the pro- 
visions of former Christian emperors for the security 
and enlargement of ecclesiastical wealth. A law of 
Leo and Anthemius was the primary palladium of 
Church property. It declared every kind of property 
in land, in houses or rents, in movables, in peasants or 
slaves, absolutely inalienable even with the concurrent 
consent of the bishop, the steward, and all the clergy. 
All such sacrilegious alienations by gift, bequest, or 
exchange, were absolutely null and void. The steward 
guilty of such alienation lost his office, and was bound 
to make good the loss out of his own property. The 
notaries who drew such deeds were’ condemned to per- 
petual exile; the judges who confirmed them lost their 
office and forfeited all their property.!| The lease or 
usufruct only could be granted under certain precise 
stipulations. 

A law of Valentinian and Marcian empowered all 
widows, deaconesses, or nuns to bequeath to any 


1 “Nec si omnes cum religioso episcopo et ceconomo clerici in eorum pos- 
sessionum alienationem consentiant.’”? —c. i.2, xiv. This law, which was 
originally limited to the church of Consfantinople, was reénacted with 
some slight alterations by Anastasius and by Justinian. —Constit. 7. Jus- 
tinian extended this law to the whole empire, including the West. — Nov. 
7. Const. ix. These two constitutions (c. i. 11, 24) gave the right of claim- 
ing bequests to the church for 100 years; this was afterwards limited to 
40.— Noy. Constit. iii. 181-386. The emperor might, for the public good, 
receive church property in exchange, giving more valuable property. — 
Nov. 7. 


510 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. | 


church, chapel, body of clergy, monastery, or to the 
poor, the whole or any part of their property. Zeno 
enacted that any one who had bestowed any property on 
any martyr, prophet, or angel, to build a house of prayer; 
in case he died before the work was finished, his heirs 
were bound to complete 1{.1Ὁ The ‘same applied to 
caravansaries, hospitals, or almshouses. The bishop or 
his officers might exact the completion to the full.? 
Justinian recognizes bequests simply to Jesus Christ, 
which might be claimed by the principal church of the 
city; and bequest made to any archangel or saint, 
without specified place, went to the nearest church 
dedicated to that angel or saint.? 

Founders of churches possessed the right of patron- 
age, but the bishop might refuse an unqualified priest.4 

All church property was declared tree from baser 
services, and from extraordinary contributions. : 

Thus the Church might constantly receive and never 
depart from property; and thus began its immunities 
from public burdens. In the rapid change of mas- 
ters, undergone in far the larger part of the Roman 
world, property of all kinds was constantly accumu- 
lating in the hands of the Church, which rarely, ex- 
cept through fraud or force, relaxed its grasp. The 
Church was the sole proprietor, whom forfeiture or 
confiscation could never reach ; whose title was never 
antiquated ; before whose hallowed boundaries violence 
stood rebuked; whom the law guarded against her 
own waste or prodigality; to whom it was the height 
of piety, almost insured salvation, to give or to be- 
queath, sacrilege to despoil, or to defraud; whose 


1C. i. 2, xv. 2C. i. 8, 45. 
3 Cod. i. 2, 26. 4 Nov. 123. Nov. Constit. 57, 2.. 


Cuap. V. PENAL LAWS. a ΕΠ 


property if alienated was held under a perpetual curse, 
which either withered its harvest, or brought disaster 
and ruin on the wrongful possessor. 

C. The penal laws of the Roman Empire, except- 
ing in the inflexible distinction drawn between the 
freeman and the slave, were not immoderately severe, 
nor especially barbarous in the execution of punish- 
ment. In this respect Christianity introduced no great 
mitigation. The abolition of crucifixion as a punish- 
ment by Constantine was an act rather of religious 
reverence than of humanity. Another law of Con- 
stantine, if more rigorously just, sanctions the cruel 
iniquity, which continued for centuries of Christian 
legislation— the torture. No one could be executed 
for a capital crime, murder, magic, adultery, except 
after his own confession, or the unanimous confession 
of all persons interrogated or submitted to torture. 

Some crimes were either made capital or more rig- 
idly and summarily punished with death by the ab- 
horrence of Christianity for sensual indulgences. The 
violation of virgins, widows, or deaconesses professing 
a religious life, was made a capital offence, to be sum- 
marily punished.? 

The crime against nature, the deep reproach of 
Greek and Roman manners, was capitally punished.® 

But remarkable powers had been given by former 
Emperors, and enlarged by Justinian, or rather, it was 
made a part of the episcopal function, to visit every 


1 By the Justinian code, Noy. cxxiii. c. 31, torture (βάσανοι) and exile 
were the punishment of any one who insulted a bishop or presbyter in the 
church. The disturbance of the sacred rites was a capital offence. 

2 Cod. i. 3, 53. 


8 Two bishops were publicly executed for this offence by Justinian. — 
Theophanes, p. 27. 


519 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


month the state prisons, to inquire into the offences 
of all persons committed, and to admonish the civil 
authorities to proceed according to the law.! Private 
prisons were prohibited; the bishop was empowered 
to order all such illegal places of confinement to be 
broken open, and the prisoners set free.” 

In certain points the bishops were the legal as well 
as the spiritual guardians of public morality. They 
had power to suppress gaming of certain prohibited 
kinds.? With the presidents of the provinces they 
might prevent women from being forced on the stage, 
or from being retained against their will in that dan- 
gerous and infamous profession.* If the president, in 
his office of purveyor for the public amusement, should 
be the person in fault, the bishop was to act of himself, 
either of his own authority or by appeal to the Em- 
peror. 

A new class of crimes, if not introduced by Chris- 
tianity, became multiplied, rigorously defined, merci- 
lessly condemned. The ancient Roman theory, that 
the religion of the State must be the religion of the 
people, which Christianity had broken to pieces by its 
inflexible resistance, was restored in more than its 
former rigor. The code of Justinian confirmed the 
laws of Theodosius and his successors, which declared 
certain heresies, Manicheism and Donatism, crimes 
against the State, as affecting the common welfare. 
The crime was punishable by confiscation of all proper- 
ty, and incompetency to inherit or to bequeath. Death 
did not secure the hidden heretic from prosecution ; 
as in high treason, he might be convicted in his grave. 


1 Cod. i. 4, 22. ; 2 Cod. i. 4, 22. 
8 Cod. i 4, 14. 4 De Episcop. Audient. ii. 4, 33. 


Cnapr. Υ. HERETICS. 51s 


Not only was his testament invalid, but inheritance 
could not descend through him. All who harbored 
such heretics were liable to punishment; their slaves 
might desert them, and transfer themselves to an or- 
thodox master! The list of proscribed heretics grad- 
ually grew wider. The Manicheans were driven 
still farther away from the sympathies of mankind ; 
by one Greek constitution they were condemned to 
capital punishment. Near thirty names of less de- 
tested heretics are recited in a law of Theodosius the 
younger, to which were added, in the time of Justin- 
ian, Nestorians, Eutychians, Apollinarians. The books 
of all these sects were to be burned ; yet the formida- 
ble number of these heretics made, no doubt, the gen- 
eral execution of the laws impossible. But the Jus- 
tinian code, having defined as heretics all who do not 
believe the Catholic faith, declares such heretics, as 
well as Pagans, Jews, and Samaritans, incapable of 
holding civil or military offices, except in the lowest 
ranks of the latter;? they could attain to no civic 
dignity which was held in honor, as that of the de- 
fensors, though such offices as were burdensome might 
be imposed even on Jews. The assemblies of all her- 
etics were forbidden, their books were to be collect- 
ed and burned, their rites, baptisms, and ordinations 
prohibited. Children of heretical parents might em- 
brace orthodoxy; the males the parent could not 
disinherit, to the females he was bound to give an 
adequate dowry.® The testimony of Manicheans, of 


1 Cod. de Heret. i. 5, 11. 

2 There was an exception for the Goths in the service of the E:mpire. 
8 Cod. i. ix. 5. 4 Cod. i. 5, 21. 

5 Cod. i. 5, 21. 


VOL. I. 33 


514 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


Samaritans, and Pagans could not be received ; apos- 
tates to any of these sects and religions lost all their 
former privileges, and were liable to all penalties.! 

II. The Barbaric Laws? differed from those of the 
Barbarie + €Mpire in this important pot. The Roman 
sores. jurisprudence issued entirely from the will of 
the Emperor.2 The ancient laws, whether of the Re- 
public or of his imperial predecessors, received their’ 
final sanction, as comprehended within his code: the 
answers of the great lawyers, the accredited legal 
maxims, obtained their perpetuity, and became the 
permanent statutes of the realm through the same au- 
thority. The barbaric were national codes, framed 
and enacted by the King, with the advice and with 
the consent of the great council of his nobles, the 
flower and representative of the nation.t They were 


1 Cod. i. 7. 

2 All the barbarian codes are in Latin, but German words are perpetually 
introduced for offices and usages purely Teutonic. — Wergelda, Rachim- 
burg. See Eichhorn, Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte, i. p. 282. See curious 
extract from Lombard Law on manumission, p. 831. The collection which 
I have chiefly used is the latest, that of Canciani, Leges Barbarorum, Ven- 
ice, 1781. 

3 Many Christians, even of honorable birth, according to Salvian, fled 
from the cruel oppressions of the Roman law, no doubt the fiscal part, and 
took refuge among the heathen barbarians. ‘ Inter hee vastantur paupe- 
res, vidue gemunt, orphani proculcantur, in tantum ut multi eorum et non 
obscuris natalibus editi et liberaliter instituti ad hostes fugiunt, ne persecu- 
tionis public afflictione moriantur, querentes scilicet apud barbaros Roma- 
num humanum, quia apud Romanos barbaram inhumanitatem ferre non 
possunt. Et quamyis ab his, ad quos confugiunt, discrepent ritu, discre- 
pent lingu4, ipso etiam, ut ita dicam, corporum atque induviarum barbari- 
carum foetore dissentiant, malunt tamen in barbaris pati cultum dissimilem, 
quam in Romanis injustitiam seevientem.’’ — De Gub. Dei, lib. v. 

4“ Hoc decretum est apud Regem et principes ejus, et apud cunctwm pop- 
ulum Christianum, qui infra regnum Merovingorum consistunt.’’ — Pref. 
ad Leg. Ripuar. The Salic law is that of the Gens Francerum inclyta, 
among whose praises it is that they had subdued those Romans, who burned 
or slew the martyrs, while the Franks adorn their relics with gold and 
precious stones. — Preef. ad Leg. Salic. 


Cuap. V. LAWS OF THEODORIC AND ATHALARIC. 575 


the laws of the people as well as of the King. As 
by degrees the bishops became nobles, as they were 
summoned or took their place in the great council, 
their influence becomes more distinct and manifest : 
they are joint legislators with the King and the 
nobles, and their superior intelligence,’ as the only 
lettered class, gives them great opportunity of modi- 
fying, in the interest of religion or in their own, the 
statutes of the rising kingdoms. This, however, was 
of a later pericd. The earliest of these codes, the 
Edict of Theodoric, is so entirely Roman, jays of 
that it can scarcely be called barbaric juris {79°stha. 
prudence. It is Roman in its general pro- mis 
visions, in its language, in its penalties; it is Roman 
in the supreme and imperial power of legislation as- 
sumed by the King: there is, in fact, no Ostrogothic 
code. The silence as to ecclesiastical matters in the 
edicts of Theodoric and Athalaric arises from the 
peculiar position of Theodoric, an Arian sovereign in 
the midst of Catholicism dominant in Rome and 
throughout Italy.2 But there is a singular illustra- 
tion of the theory of ecclesiastical power, as vested 
in the temporal sovereign. The Arian Athalaric, 
the son of Theodoric, at the request of the Pope him- 
self, issues a strong edict against simony, which by his 
command is affixed, with a decree of the Senate to 
the same effect, before the porch of St. Peter’s. The 

1 The first instance of this is in the preface to the code of Alaric. “‘ Util- 
itates populi nostri propitia divinitate tractantes, hoc quoque quod in legi- 
bus videbatur iniquum meliori deliberatione corrigimus, ut omnis legum 
Romanarum et antiqui juris obscuritas, adhibitis sacerdotibus et nobilibus 
viris, in lucem intelligentie melioris deducta resplendeat.”’ 

2 There are some provisions favorable to the church borrowed from the 


Roman law. The church inherited all the property of clergy dying intes- 
‘ate. —xxvii.: apud Canciani, i. p. 15. 


δ10 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


points in which the Ostrogothic edict departs from 
the Roman law are: I. The stronger difference drawn 
between the crimes of the nobles and of the inferior 
classes. Already the Teutonic principle of estimat- 
ing all crimes at a certain pecuniary amount, accord- 
ing to the social rank of the injured person, the 
wehrgelt, is beginning to appear, as well as its con- 
sequence, that he who could not pay by money must 
pay by his life! False witness is punished with death 
in the poor, by a fine in the rich; the incendiary is 
burned alive if a slave or serf,? if free he has only to 
replace the amount of damage; should he be insolvent, 
he is condemned to beating and exile. Wizards, if of 
honorable birth, were punished with exile; if of 
humbler descent, with death; while a freeborn adul- 
teress was sentenced to death, in a vile and vulgar 
woman the crime was venial.2 In seduction, the se- 
ducer was obliged to marry the woman; if married, 
to endow her with a third of his estate ; if ignoble, he 
suffered death. II. The edict, in the severity of its 
punishments, exceeds the Roman law, especially, as 
might be expected among the Goths, in all crimes re- 
lating to the violation of chastity. Capital punish- 
ments were multiplied, and capital punishments almost 
unknown to the Roman law. The author of sedition 
in the city or the camp was to be burned alive.6 The 
male adulterer was to be burned, the female capitally 
punished. Death was enacted against pagans, sooth- 
sayers, lowborn wizards ; against destroyers of tombs, 
against kidnappers of freemen, against forgery, against 
the judge who sentenced contrary to law ;’ against 


1 xc. 1. 2 xevii. colonus. 8 I xii. 4 lix. 
6 cxii. 6 xi. (a) he Oe 


Cuap. V. CLERGY CO-LEGISLATORS. 517 


robbery of churches, or forcibly dragging persons 
thence, death.} 

Not only were adulterers capitally punished, but 
whoever lent his house for the perpetration of the 
crime, or persuaded the woman to its perpetration.2 
Rape of a free-woman or virgin was death, which ex- 
tended to all who were aiding or abetting. Parents 
neglecting to prosecute for rape on a girl under age 
were condemned to exile. The consenting female suf- 
fered death.? 

The law of divorce, however, remained Roman: it 
admitted the same causes, and was limited by the same 
restrictions. The Edict of Athalaric against concu- 
binage reduced the children of the freeborn concubine 
to slavery. The slave concubine was in the power of 
the matron, who might inflict any punishment short of 
bloodshed. Polygamy was expressly forbidden.° 

The Lombard laws are issued by King Rotharis,® 
with the advice of his nobles.’ The Burgundian, in 
their whole character, are intermediate between the 
Roman and Barbaric jurisprudence. The bishops first 
appear as co-legislators among the Visigoths. Already 
in France Alaric the Visigoth adopts the crergy οο- 
abridgment of the Roman law, by the ad- ‘8%: 
vice of his priests as well as of his nobles.? But it is 

1 exxy. 

2xxxix. So also the Lombard Law, ccxii. A man might defend himself 
from a charge of adultery by an oath or by his champion. — cexiv. 

8 xvii. xviii. 

4 liv. 

5 vil. vi. 

6 The laws of Rotharis were written seventy-six years after the invasion 
of Italy by the Lombards. The Lombards, it must be remembered, were 
still Arians. The church, therefore, is not co-legislative with the nobles. 


7“ Cum primatibus meis judicibus.’”” — Preefat. in Canciani, vol. 1. 
8“ Adhibitis sacerdotibus ac nobilibus viris;’’ compare Canciani, in 


δ18 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


in Spain, after the Visigoths had cast off their Arian- 
ism, that the bishops more manifestly influence the 
whole character of the legislation. The synods of To- 
ledo were not merely national councils, but parlia- 
ments of the realm.t After the ecclesiastical affairs 
had been transacted, the bishops and nobles met to- 
gether, and with the royal sanction enacted laws.2 
The people gave their assent. The King himself is 
subject to the Visigothic law. The unlawful usurper 
of the Crown is subject to ecclesiastical as well as to 
civil penalties, to excommunication as well as to death. 
Even ecclesiastics consenting to such treason are to be 
involved in the interdict. These ecclesiastical lawgiv- 
ers, while they arm themselves with great powers for 
the public good, claim no immunity. Bishops are lia- 
ble to fines for disregard of judges’ orders.? The clergy 
are amenable to the same penalty for contumacy as the 
laity. But great powers are given to the bishops to 
restrain unjust judges, even the counts.? The terrible 
laws against heresy, and the atrocious juridical persecu- 
tions of the Jews, already designate Spain as the throne 
and centre of merciless bigotry. 

The Salic law proclaims itself that of the noble na- 


Prefat. p. xiii. Eichhorn, not reckoning the Edict of Theodoric, arranges 
the codes thus: I. Lex Visigothica—the origin of the Fuero Juzgo — 
which, however, has many late additions. I. Lex Salica. III. The Bur- 
gundian. IV. Ripuarica, Alemannica, Bavarica. These betray higher 
kingly power. 

1 Canciani, iv. p. 52. 

2 Leges Visigoth. ii. 1, 6. 

3 ii. 1, 18, ibid. 

4 ij. 1. 29, 30. 

5 In the Visigothic code the observance of the Sunday and of holydays 
is appointed by law. The holydays were fifteen at Easter, seven before, 
seven after. The Nativity, Circumcision, Epiphany, Pentecost, Ascension, 
and certain days at harvest and vintage time. 


ὕπαρ. V. TEUTONIC KINGS AND LAWS. 519 


tion of the Franks, lately converted to the Salic aw. 
Catholic faith, and even while yet barbarians untainted 
with heresy. Ina later sentence it boasts that it has 
enshrined in gold and precious stones the relics of those 
martyrs whom the Romans burned with fire, slew with 
the sword, or cast to the wild beasts.) But it is the 
law of the King and the nobles: the bishops are not 
named, perhaps because as yet the higher clergy were 
still of Roman descent. 

Still, however the Teutonic kings and Teutonic leg- 
islators at first perhaps in their character of conquerors, 
assumed supreme dominion over the Church as well as 
over the State, and the subject bishops bowed before 
the irresistible authority. St. Remigius violated a can- 
on of the Church on the ordination of a presbyter at 
the command of Clovis.2, Among the successors of 
Clovis no bishop was appointed without the sanction 
of the Crown.? Theodoric, son of Clovis, commanded 
the elevation of St. Nicetius to the see of Treves.4 
The royal power was shown in the shameless sale of 
bishoprics.6 The nomination or the assent of the 
clergy and the people was implied in the theory of the 
election, but often overborne by the awe of the royal 
authority. The Council of Orleans, which condemned 

1 Apud Canciani, vol. ii. see p. 370. 

2 “ Scribitis canonicum non fuisse quod jussit. . . . . Presul regionum, 
custos patrize, gentium triumphator illud injunxit.’’ —Epist. 5. Remigii; 
Bouquet iv. p. 52. 

8 Planck, ii.114. a.p. 529. 

4 “Fum ad episcopatum jussit accersiri.’” — Gr. Tur. 

5 “Jam tune germen illud iniquum cceperat fructificare, ut sacerdotium 
aut venderetur a regibus, aut compararetur a clericis.’’ — Greg. Tur. Vit* 
Patr. vi. 3. 

6 “Ut nulli episcopatum premiis aut comparatione liceat adipisci: sed 


cum voluntate regis juxta electionem cleri ac plebis,” &c. A.D. 549. Concil. 
Can. 10 


520 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


the sale of bishoprics, fully ackncwledged the suprem- 
acy of the royal will. A few years later a Council at 
Paris endeavored to throw off the yoke. It declared 
the election to be in the clergy and the people. [0 dis- 
claimed the royal mandate, and condemned the bishop 
who should dare to obtain ordination through the King 
to be excluded from the fellowship of the bishops of the 
province.!’ But the fierce Frankish sovereigns, while 
they appeared to accede to these pretensions, tramp- 
led them under foot. The right seems to follow them 
in their career of conquest. Dalmatius, Bishop of 
Rhodez, in his last will, besought the King, under the 
most terrible adjurations, not to grant his office to a 
foreigner, a covetous person, or a married man.2 In 
562 a synod, held under Leontius, Archbishop of 
Bordeaux, deposed the Bishop Emerius, as consecrated 
by a decree of King Chlotaire without his sanction. 
When the new Bishop Herculius presented himself at 
Paris, “* What !”” exclaimed King Charibert, “do men 
think that there is no son of Chlotaire to maintain his 
father’s decrees, that ye dare to degrade a bishop ap- 
pointed by his will?’ He ordered the rash intruder 
to be thrown into a cart strewn with thorns, and so 
sent into banishment ; the Bishop Emerius to be rein- 


stated by holy men.? He fined the synod. The royal 


1 “ Nullus civibus invitis ordinetur episcopus, nisi quem populi et cleri- 
corum electio plenissima quesierit voluntate. Non principis imperio, neque 
per quamlibet conditionem, contra metropolis voluntatem vel episcoporum 
provincialium ingeratur. Quod si per ordinationem regiam honoris istius 
culmen pervadere aliquis nimia temeritate presumpserit, a comprovinciali- 
bus loci ipsius episcopus recipi nullatenus mereatur, quem indebite ordina- 
tum agnoscunt.’’ — Can. viii. 

2 Gregor. Tur. v. 47. 

8 Gregor. Tur. iv. 26. Loébel observes that Gregory, from his expres- 
sion, “ἘΠ sic principis ultus est injuriam,’’ thought the king in the right. 


Cuar. V. AMENABILITY OF THE CLERGY. SA | 


prerogative was perpetually asserted down at least to 
the time of Charlemagne.! 

In the Gothic kingdom of Spain, so long as it was 
Arian, the kings interfered not in the appointment of 
bishops. Their orthodox successors left, it should seem, 
affairs to take their own course.2. But towards the 
close of the seventh century the Council of Toledo 
acknowledged the King as invested with the right of 
electing bishops.? Ecclesiastical synods were only held 
by royal permission. Their decrees required the royal 
sanction. This theory may be traced through the nu- 
merous synods for ecclesiastical purposes in Gaul, be- 
tween the conquest and the close of the sixth century.® 
In Spain the custom appears distinctly recognized even 
under Arian kings.® 

As under the Roman law no one could elude civil 
office by retreating into holy orders. No decurion 
could be ordained without special permission. No free- 
man could be ordained in the Barbaric kingdoms with- 


1 See instances in Loébel. King Guntran, in 584, rejected (it seemed an 
extraordinary case) gifts for episcopal appointments. ‘Non est principatus 
nostri consuetudo sacerdotium venundare sub pretio, sed nec vestrum cum 
premiis comparare: ne et nos turpis lucri infamié notemur, et vos mago 
Simoni comparemini.’’ — Greg. Tur. vi. 39. 

2 Pope Hilarius laid before a synod at Rome a letter of the Tarragonian 
bishops complaining that in the other provinces of Spain episcopal elections 
had ceased. The bishop nominated his successor in his testament.— Baron. 
sub ann. 466. 

3“ Quod regiz potestatis sit episcopos eligere.”’ 

4 Planck, ch. ii. p. 125; from 511 to 590, were held twenty-one Gallic 
synods: most of them have permission “ gloriosissimi regis,”’ or some such 
phrase. 

5 Planck, note, page 130. 

6 King Theudes, in 531, permits the orthodox bishops “in Toledanam 
urbem convenire, et quacunque ad ecclesiasticam disciplinam pertinerent 
dicere, licenterque dicere.’’ —Isid. in Chron. ad A.D. 531. 


522 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


out the consent of the king, because thereby the king 
lost his military service.’ 

Below the sovereign power the people maintained 
the right of the joint election of bishops with the 
clergy. This old Christian usage would fall in with 
the Teutonic habits. As the Teutons raised their king 
upon the buckler, and proclaimed him with the assent of 
the freemen of the tribe, so the acclamation of the peo- 
ple ratified or anticipated the nomination of the bishop.” 

The clergy enjoyed no immunity from the laws of 
the land.2. In criminal cases two successive Councils, 
at Macon and at Poictiers,t acknowledged that for all 
criminal offences, as homicide, robbery, witchcraft, to 
which the latter adds adultery, they were amenable to 
the civil jurisdiction.® At a later period the presence 
of the bishop was declared necessary.® If mdeed the 
awe of the clergy might repress, or the obstinate claim 
to immunity ἘΡΊΞΕΙΕ the ordinary judge, the royal 
authority was neither limited by fear nor scruple.? Nu- 

1 Cone. Aurelian. A.p. 511, can. 6. confirmed by a capitulary, A.D. 805. I. 
6. 114. — Mareulf. i. 19. —Praceptum de Clericatu. — Planck, 159. 

2 For the usage under the Roman dominion in Gaul, from the earliest 
period to the fifth century, see Raynouard, Histoire du Droit Municipal en 
France, i. ch. xxvi. It continued to the twelfth century. 

3 The appeal of the clergy to the civil courts for the redress of ecclesias- 
tical grievances was strictly forbidden. — Concil. Tolet. iii. 13. Cone. Paris. 
A.D. 589. c. 18. Council under St. Recared, enacted, ‘‘ Ne amplius liceat 
clericis conclericos suos relicto Pontifice ad judicia secularia pertrahere.”’ 

A.D. 589. c. 13. 

4 Concil. Matiscon. A.D. 581. Concil. Pictav. 

5 According to Gregory of Tours, Count Leudastes of Tours had, almost 
every day, when he sat in justice, priests brought before him in chains. — 
Lib. v. ο. 49. 

6 Capit. i. 23. 

7 At the end of the sixth century, the civil authorities in Spain took 


upon them to enforce clerical continence. They visited the houses of the 
clergy, and took out all suspicious females. With the consent of the bishops, 


Cuap. V. AMENABILITY OF THE CLERGY. SAS) 


merous instances occur of bishops treated with the most 
cruel indignity by the fierce Frankish sovereigns for 
real or imputed crimes.' At times indeed they sub- 
mitted to the tardier process of a previous condemna- 
tion by an ecclesiastical synod. Przetextatus, Bishop 
of Rouen, was accused by King Chilperic as an accom- 
plice in the rebellion of his son, before a synod in 
Paris. Preetextatus was in danger of being dragged 
from the church and stoned by the Franks. The bish- 
ops were prepared to utter the ban. But his defence 
was undertaken by the historian, Gregory of Tours. 
Neither fear nor bribery could deter the intrepid advo- 
cate from maintaining the innocence of the bishop.? 
When the King could not obtain his condemnation, 
either the tearing his holy vesture, or the imprecation 
of the 108th Psalm against him, or even his exclusion 
from Christian communion, Preetextatus was suddenly 
hurried away to prison; on his attempt to escape, 
grievously beaten and sent into exile.‘ This transac- 
tion, notwithstanding its melancholy close, shows some 
growing respect for ecclesiastical tribunals in cases even 
of high treason. The Spanish kings threaten bishops 
with royal as well as ecclesiastical censure.® 

There were appeals from ecclesiastical synods to the 
Crown; in some cases the royal authority interposed 


who seem to have approved of this procedure, they might seize the women 
as slaves. — Concil. Hispal. 3. 

1 Greg. Tur. vi. 24. 

2“Ducentas argenti libras promisit, si Pretextatus, me impugnante 
opprimeretur.”’ 

3 Gregory himself admits the supremacy of the king over the clergy. 
“Si quis de nobis, 0 rex, justitiz tramitem transcendere voluerit a te 
corrigi potest; si vero tu excesseris, quis te corripiet ?”’ 

4 Greg. Tur. ν. 18. 

5 Planck, ii. 188. 


524 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


to mitigate or to relieve from ecclesiastical penal- 
ties.! 

But there is a strong converse to this subjection of 
the Church to the power of the King or the nobility. 
Already in the sixth and seventh centuries, the bishops 
appear in all the great assemblies of the people.? They 
have a voice in the election of the King; before long, 
his coronation becomes a religious ceremony. It was 
not, according to one theory, that they succeeded the 
Druids of Gaul and the Teutonic priests in their dig- 
nity (the Druids and their religion had long ceased to 
maintain any influence, the German priests do not 
appear to have formed a part of the great warlike mi- 
erations of the tribes), nor that the bishops claimed 
the privilege of all free Franks to give their suffrage in 
the popular assembly. There were few of these regu- 
lar parliaments ; they were rather great councils sum- 
moned by the king. The position of the Bishops, 
their influence with the people, their rank in public 
estimation, their superior intelligence, designated them 
as useful members of such council. The later Gothic 
kings of Spain felt even more awe of the clergy: they 
had been rescued by their zeal, not merely from the 
terrible retribution which awaited heathenism, but 
from that of heresy. Their conversion to orthodoxy 
showed the power which the Latin clergy had obtained 
over their minds; and they would hasten to lay the 


1 See the curious Hist. of the Royal nuns (Greg. Tur. x. 20), and the ex- 
communication of Archbishop Sisibert of Toledo: “ Ut in fine vite tantum 
communionem accipiat, excepto, si regia pietas antea eum absolvendum 
crediderit.’’ — A.D. 693. Planck, p. 194. 

2 According to Eickhorn, the first manifest ‘“‘Concilium mixtum”’ was in 
A.D. 615. From this emanated the constitutions of Chlotaire II. which 
recognized the temporal powers of the hierarchy. —i. p. 520. 


Crap. V. EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY. 525 


first fruits of their gratitude, submission, and reverence, 
at the feet of the clergy. Nor were the affairs discussed 
at these great councils strictly defined. There was no 
distinct line between civil and religious matters. ‘This 
distinction belongs to a later period of civilization. 
The clergy were not unwilling to obtain the royal or 
the national assent to their spiritual decrees. The king 
naturally desired the intelligence, the love of order, 
the authority, the influence of the clergy, to ratify his 
civil edicts. The reciprocal rights of each party had 
been as yet too little contested to awaken that sensitive 
jealousy of interference which grew up out of centuries 
of mutual aggression. 

But if in the great public assemblies the bishops had 
already taken this rank, each in his city held an au- 
thority partly recognized by law, partly resting on the 
general awe and reverence.! As in the East, the bishop 
had a general superintendence over the courts of law. 
He had, if not always the presidential, a seat in the 
judicial tribunal.2 He was, if not by statute, by uni- 
versal recognition, what the defensor had been in the 
old municipal system, only with all the increased influ- 
ence of his religious character. To him the injured 
party could appeal in default of justice. He was the 
patron, the advocate of the poor. He had power to 
punish subordinate judges for injustice in the absence of 
the king. In Spain the Bishops had a special charge to 
keep continual watch over the administration of justice,’ 


1 So King Chlotaire ordained. — Greg. Tur. vi. 31. 

2 On the residence of the bishops in the cities, its effect on the great 
increase in the power of the bishop, and on the freedom of the cities, com- 
pare Thierry. — Récits. Mérovingiens, i. 266. 

8 “Ex decreto domini regis —simul cum sacerdotali concilio conveniant 
ut discant quam pié et juste cum populis agere debeant.’’ — Concil. Tolet. 
iii. 38. 


526 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


and were summoned on all great occasions to instruct 
the judges to act with piety and justice." 

Thus the clergy stood between the two hostile races 
in the new constitution of society —the reconcilers, 
the pacifiers, the harmonizers of the hostile elements. 
They were Latin in general in descent, in language, 
yet comprehending both races under their authority 
and influence; admitted to the councils of the Kings, 
and equal to the count or the noble in estimation ; 
controlling one race by awe, looked up to by the other 
as their natural protectors ; opposing brute force by 
moral and religious influences ; supplying the impo- 
tency of the barbaric law to restrain oppression and 
iniquity (where every injury or crime had its commu- 
tative fine) by the dread of the religious interdict and 
the fears of hell; stooping unconsciously to the super- 
stition of the times, but ruling more powerfully through 
that superstition. They were the guardians and pro- 
tectors of the conquered, of the servile classes, whose 
condition was growing worse and worse, against the 
privileged freemen; enduring, mitigating, when they 
could not control, the wild crimes of the different petty 
kings, who were constantly severing into fragments the 
great Frankish monarchy, and warring, intriguing, 
assassinating for each fragment. The Bishops during 
all that period, in Spain, in France, in Italy — making 
every allowance for the legendary and almost adoring 
tone in which their histories have descended to us — 
appear as the sole representatives of law, order, and 


1 “ Sint prospectores episcopi qualiter judices cum populis agant, ut ipsos 
premonitos corrigant, aut insolentiam eorum principum auribus innotescant. 
Quod si correptos emendare nequiverint, et ab ecclesia et a communione 
suspendant.”’ —Ibid.: compare Leg. Visigoth. ii. 1, 29, 30; Synod. Tolet 
A.D. 633, can. 32. 


Cuar. Υ͂. RIGHTS OF PERSONS. 527 
justice, as well as of Christian virtue and humanity. 
There is even a cessation of religious persecution, ex- 
cept against the Jews. After the extinction of Arian- 
ism, the human mind had sunk into such inactivity and 
barrenness that it did not even produce a new heresy. 
Except the peculiar opinions of Felix and Elipandus, 
and those of Adelbert and Clement in Gaul, down to 
the time when the monk Gotschalk started the question 
of predestination, the West slumbered in unreasoning 
orthodoxy. 

A. The Barbaric codes, like the Roman, recognized 
slavery as an ordinary condition of mankind.’ gignts of 
Man was still a marketable commodity. The tier Bar- 
captive in war became a slave ; and it was hap- barto coder, 
py for mankind that he became so, otherwise the wars 
which swept over the whole world, civilized and un- 
civilized, must have been wars of massacre and exter- 
mination. The victory of Stilicho over Rhadagaisus 
threw 200,000 Goths or other Germans into the market, 
and lowered the price of a slave from twenty-five pieces of 
gold to one.2 The well-known story of the Anglo-Sax- 
on youths who excited the compassion of Pope Grego- 
ry I. shows that in his time the public sale of slaves was 
still common in Rome. The redemption of captives — 
that is the repurchase of slaves in order to restore them to 
freedom — is esteemed an act of piety im the West as in 
the East. The first prohibition of this traffic, both by 


law and by public sentiment, was confined to the sale 


1 The church lived according to the Roman law: ‘“‘ Legem Romanam qua 
ecclesia vivit.”” — Eichhorn, i. 297. In the Ripuarian law the wehrgeld of 
the clergyman was at first according to his birth, ‘‘Servus ut servum;” 
afterwards according to his ecclesiastical rank. — Ibid. 

2 Orosius, vii. 37. 


528 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


of Christians to pagans, Jews, and in some cases to 
heretics. The Jews were the great slave-merchants of 
the age! But it was the religion rather than the per- 
sonal freedom which was taken under the protection 6f 
the law. The capture and sale of men was part of the 
piratical system along all the shores of Europe, espe- 
cially on the northern coasts. The sale of pagan 
prisoners of war was authorized by Clovis after the 
defeat of the Alemanni; by Charlemagne after that of 
the Saxons; by Henry the Fowler, as to that unhappy 
race which gave their name to the class — the Slaves.? 

The barbarian codes seem to acknowledge the le- 
mai ealae gality of marriages between slaves, and their 
Na religious sanctity; that of the Lombards on 
the authority of the Scriptural sentence, “ Whom God 
hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” All 
unlawful connection with married or unmarried slaves 
is forbidden.? The slave who detected his wife in adul- 
tery might, like the freeman, kill the two criminals. 
Still, however, they were slaves. The law interfered 
to prohibit marriages between the slaves of different 
masters. If the marriage took place without the con- 
sent of the master, the slave was punishable, by the 
Salic law, either by a mulct of threepence, or was 
to receive a hundred stripes. The later laws became 
more lenient, and divided the offspring between the 
two masters. 

The barbarian codes were as severe as the Roman in 
prohibiting the debasing alliance of the freeman with 

1 Hist. of Jews, iii. 

2 Compare Biot, p. 185, De |’ Abolition de l’Esclavage ancien en Occident 
Paris, 1840. 


8 Lex Salic. tit. xxviii. 
4 Lex Salic. xxviii. 5. 


Cuar. V. MARRIAGE OF PREEMEN AND SLAVES. 529 


the slave. The Salic and Ripuarian law Marriage of 

condemned the freeman guilty of this degra- ee 

dation to slavery ;! where the union was between a 
free-woman and a slave, that of the Lombards? and 
that of the Burgundians® condemned both parties 
to death; but if her parents refused to put her to 
death, she became the slave of the crown. The 
‘ Ripuarian law condemned the female delinquent to 
slavery ; but the woman had the alternative of killing 
her base-born husband. She was offered a distaff and 
a sword. If she chose the distaff, she became a slave ; 
if the sword, she struck it to the heart of her para- 
mour, and emancipated herself from her degrading con- 
nection.4 The Visigothic law condemned the female 
who had connection with or wished to marry her own 
slave, or even a freedman, to death. For the same 
offence with the slave of another, both were punished 
with a hundred stripes. For the fourth offence the 
woman be¢ame the handmaid of the slave’s master. 
The Saxon law still more sternly interdicted all mar- 
riages below the proper rank, whether of nobles, free 
men, or slaves, under pain of death. The laws of the 
Lombards and of the Alemanni were more mild. The 
latter allowed the female to separate from her slave 
husband on certain conditions, if she had not degraded 
herself by any servile occupation.® 


1 Lex Sal. xxix. ν. 3: Lex Ripuar. lviii. 9. 

2 cexxii. 

8 Tit. xxxv. 2. 

4 Lex Ripuar. lviii. 18. 

6 Adam. Brem., Hist. Eccles. i. 5. By the Bavarian law, a slave commit- 
ting fornication with a free-woman was to be given up, to be put to death 
if they pleased, to the parents, and not to pay any mulct: ‘quia talis pre- 
sumptio excitat inimicitias in populo.’’ — ii. ix. 

VOL. I. 34 


530 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


Under the barbarian as under the Roman law, the 
slave was protected chiefly as the property of his mas- 
ter. All injury or damage was done to the thing 
rather than the person, and was to be paid for by a 
mulct to the owner, not a compensation to the sufferer.! 
By the edict of Theodoric, he who killed the slave of 
another might be prosecuted for homicide, or sued by a 
civil process for the delivery of two slaves in place of 
the one killed.2 But slaves bore the penalty of their 
own offences, and even of those of their masters. If 
guilty of acts of violence, though under their masters’ 
orders, they suffered death. The slave was not to be 
tortured, except to prove the guilt of his master, un- 
less the informer would pay the master his value. If 
bought in order to suppress his evidence, he might be 
repurchased at the same price, and put to the torture. 
The right of life and death still subsisted in the master. 
According to some of the barbaric codes, here retro- 
grading from the Roman, he had full power to make 
away with his own property. This usage, noticed by 
Tacitus as common to the German tribes, continued to 


1 In the Burgundian law, the murder of a slave is only punished by a 
fine, according to his value.* The humaner Visigothic code distinctly pro- 
hibited the murder of a slave. The punishment was fine and infamy. An- 
other law recognized the image of God in the slave, and therefore inter- 
dicted his mutilation. 

2 The Burgundian law shows that the artisans in the mingled Roman and 
barbarian society were chiefly slaves. ‘‘ Quicunque vero seryum suum au- 
rificem, argentarium, ferrarium, fabrum erarium, sartorem vel sutorem, in 
publico adtributum artificium exercere permiserit,”’ &c. — Tit. xxi. 

8 Art. Ixxvii. 

4 Art. c. ci. By the Bavarian law, if a slave was unjustly put to the tor- 
ture, the false accuser of the slave-was to give another slave to the master; 
if the slave died under torture, two.t 


* Tit. x.; Leges Visigoth. vi. v. 12; Law of Egica, vi. v. 18. 
Τ Tit. viii. 18, 1, 2: compare Burgundian law, Tit. vii. 


Cuar. V. EMANCIPATION OF SLAVES. 581 


the Capitularies of Charlemagne. That code adopts 
the Mosaic provisions.1 Under Lewis the Debonnaire 
and Lothaire, the arbitrary murder of a slave was pun- 
ished by excommunication or two years’ penance.” 

The runaway slave was the outcast of society. At 
first he was denied the privilege of asylum.? It was a 
crime to conceal him; he might be seized anywhere ; 
punished by his master according to his will; and 
according to some codes he might be slain in case of 
resistance. The influence of the Church appears 
in some singular and contradictory provisions.* The 
Churches themselves were slaveholders.? ‘There were 
special provisions to protect their slaves. By the law 
of the Alemanni, whoever concealed an ecclesiastic’s 
slave was condemned to a triple fine.6 In the Bava- 
rian law, whoever incited the slave of a church or a 
monastery to flight, must pay a mulct of fifteen solidi, 
and restore the slave or replace him by another. The 
Church gradually claimed the right of asylum for fugi- 
tive slaves. The slave who had taken refuge at the 
altar was to be restored to his master only on his 
promise of remitting the punishment.’ 

As under the Roman law, peculiar solemnity at- 
tached to the emancipation of the slave in the church 


1 Exod. xxi. 20, 21. 

2 Dachery, Spicileg. Addit. ad Cap. ο. 49; Biot, p. 286 

8 Edict. Theodor. Ixx.; Leg. Longobard. cclxxxii. 

4 Lex Salica; Lex Ripuar,xiv- 

5 “Non ν᾽ era anticamente Signor Secolare, Vescovo, Abbate, Capitole 
di Canonici, e Monastero, che non avesse al suo servigio molti servi.” 
Manumission was more rare among the clergy than among secular masters, 
because it was an alienation of the property of the church. — Muratori, Ant. 
Italiane, Diss. xy. 

6 Lex Alemann. 3. 

7 Concil. Aurelian.: compare the Visigothic law, ix. 1, de fugitivis. 


bo LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


and before the priest ; and emancipation thus became 
an act of piety. So in some of the Teutonic codes, as 
in the Visigothic, emancipation before the parish priest 
was an ordinary act recognized by the law. It was a 
common form that it was done by the pious man for the 
remedy or the ransom of his soul.! 

Easter was usually the appointed time for this public 
manumission in the churches; and no doubt the glad 
influences of that holy season awoke the disposition and 
the emulation, in many Christian minds, of conferring 
the blessing of freedom upon their slaves. 

Gregory the Great seems to have been the first who 
enfranchised slaves on the pure and noble principle of 
the common equality of mankind. 

But the great change in the condition of the servile 
order arose chiefly from other causes, besides the influ- 
ence of Christianity. This benign influence operated 
no doubt in these indirect ways to a great extent, first 
on the mitigation, afterwards on the abolition of domes- 
tic slavery ; but it was perhaps the multiplication of 
slaves which to a certain extent slowly wrought its 
own remedy. The new relations of the different races 
consequent on the barbaric conquests, the habits of the 
Teutonic tribes settled within the Empire, the attach- 
ment of the rural or predial slave to the soil, the 
change of the slave into the serf, which became uni- 
versal in Europe, tended in different ways to the 
general though tardy emancipation. The serf was 
immovable as the soil: he became as it were part of it, 

1 Leges Visigoth. v. vii.: compare note of Canciani, and the 15th Dis- 
sertation of Muratori. This began early both in East and West. ‘“ Seryum 
tuum manumittendum manu ducis in ecclesiam. Fit silentium. Libellus 


tunc recitatur, aut fit desiderii tui prosecutio.’’ — 8. August. Serm. xxxi. 
It was done pro remedio, or pro mercede anime suz. 


Cuar. V. BURGUNDIAN LAW OF DIVORCE. 533 


and so in some degree beyond the caprice or despotism 
of his master. Already under the Empire, the sys- 
tem of taxation had affixed the peasant to the soil: the 
owner paid according to the number of heads of slaves, 
as he might of cattle. Whether the cultivators were 
originally born on the estate ascribed to them, or set- 
tled upon it, they were equally irremovable. No one 
could sell his estate, and transfer the slaves to another 
property. The estates of the Church were no doubt, 
as they yet enjoyed no immunity of taxation, subject 
to the same laws. It may be generally said that the 
whole cultivation of the Roman empire was conducted, 
if not by slaves, by those whose condition did not really 
differ from slavery. The emancipation began at a pe- 
riod in the Christian history, centuries later than that 
at which we are arrived at present.’ 

The barbaric codes, as well as the edict of Theod- 
oric,2 retained the high Teutonic reverence for the 
sanctity of marriage. In the Burgundian law, adultery 
was punishable by death.? In all cases it rendered the 
woman infamous. A widow guilty of incontinency 
could not marry again—at least could not receive 
dower. In the Visigothic code the adulteress and her 
paramour were given up to the injured husband, to be 
punished according to his will: he might put them to 
death. The law of divorce under the Burgundian law 


1 Tit. xl.-xlviii.: compare the Justinian code ‘De agricolis et censitis 
et colonis.’? Law of Constantius, ii— Law of Valentinian and Valens. 
“QOmnes omnino fugitivos adscriptitios, colonos vel inquilinos, sine ullo 
sexs, muneris conditionisque discrimine ad antiquos penates, ubi censiti 
itque educati natique sunt, provinciis prasidentes redire compellant.” On 
the change of the slave into the serf in the Carlovingian times, compare 
Lahuérou, Institutions Carlovingiennes, page 204 et seqe 

2 See above. 

8 Tit. Lxviii. and 11]. 

4 Leges Visigoth. iii. iv. 14 et seq. 


534 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


was Roman, excepting that the woman who divorced 
her husband without cause, according to an old German 
usage as to infamous persons, was smothered in mud.} 
Among the Visigoths, divorce was forbidden, except- 
ing for adultery. Incest, by the Visigothic law, was 
extended to the sixth degree of relationship. Rape was 
punished by confiscation of property, or failing that, by 
reduction to slavery.2. This code contained a severe 
statute against public prostitutes, rendering them liable 
to whipping. Incontinence in priests was corrected by 
penance ; the woman was to be whipped. The former 
statute was in that stern tone towards unchastity which 
in the Goths Salvian contrasts with the impurity of 
Roman manners.? The later laws seem gradually to 
soften off into mulcts or compositions for these as for 
other crimes. 

But among the yet un-Romanized Saxons, down to 
the days of St. Boniface, the maiden who has dishonor- 
ed her father’s house, or the adulteress, is compelled to 
hang herself, is burned, and her paramour hung over the 
blazing pile ;* or she is scourged or cut to pieces with 
knives by all the women of the village till she is dead. 


i Necetur in luto, xxxiv.1. ‘“TIgnavos et imbelles et corpore infames 
coeno ac palude inject& super crate, mergunt.’’ — Tacit. Germ. c. xii. 

2 Tit. iii. vi. Unnatural crimes were punished by castration. By the 
Bavarian law, whoever took away a nun to marry her committed adultery. 
“Scimus illum crimini obnoxium esse qui aliénam sponsam rapit, quanto 
magis ille obnoxius est crimini qui Christi usurpavit sponsam.’’ — xii. 1. 

8 jii. iv. 17. “‘ Esse inter Gothos non licet scortatorem Gothum, soli inter 
eos prejudicio nationis ac nominis permittuntur impuri esse Romani.’’? — 
Salvian. de Gub. Dei. vii. Lahuérou, however, observes: “ Voyez quelle 
énorme disproportion la loi met entre les obligations et les devoirs des 
deux époux! Le mari peut étre infidéle autant de fois et a tel degré 
qu'il le voudra, sans que la femme ait le droit de s’en plaindre.”” The Ger- 
man woman was in fact, though in a less degree than the Roman, the prop- 
erty of her husband. — Lahuérou, Institutions Carlovingiennes, p. 38. 

4 4.p. 743. Bonifac. Epist. ad Ethelbal. Reg. Mercie. 


Cuap. V. LAW OF PROPERTY. 535 


B. In the barbaric as in the Roman code, the law 
of property might seem enacted with the special 
view of securing to the Church wealth which jay of prop. 
could not but be constantly accumulating, “” 
and could never diminish. Every freeman might 
leave his property to the Church. No duke or count 
had a right to interfere. The heir who ventured to 
reclaim such dedicated property was liable to the judg- 
ment of God and to excommunication, recognized in 
more than one code.! The freeman might retain to 
himself and so enjoy the usufruct during his own life, 
and leave his heirs beggars. The proofs of such dona- 
tions were all to the advantage of the Church. The 
barbaric codes left the clergy to secure the inalienabili- 
ty of their property by their own laws. At first, and 
until the bishop began to be merged in the temporal 
feudatory, it was comparatively safe in its own sanctity. 
In the division of the conquered lands by the barba- 
rians, the Church estates remained sacred. The new 
converts could not show their sincerity better than by 
their prodigality to the Church. Clovis and his first 
successors, ignorant of the value of their new acquisi- 
tions, awarded large tracts of land with a word. St. 
Remigius received a great number of lands to be dis- 
tributed among the destitute churches. Their successors 
complained of this thoughtless prodigality. Already 
they had discovered that the royal revenues had been 
transferred to the Church.2, The whole Teutonic law, 
which appointed certain compensations for certain 
crimes, would have suggested, had suggestion been nec- 


1 Lex Alemann. et Lex Burgund., in initio. 
2“ Eece, aiebat Rex, pauper remansit fiscus noster, et divitie nostra ad 
2cclesias sunt translate.’ — Greg. Tur. vi. 46. 


536 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IIL. 


essary, the commutation system of the Church. God, 
like the freeman or the King, might be propitiated by 
the wehrgeld ; the penance of the Christian be compen- 
sated by a pecuniary mulct. Already Queen Frede- 
gunde satisfies the conscience of two hesitating murder- 
ers whom she would employ to assassinate her brother- 
in-law, King Sigebert, by the promise of large alms to 
the Church, in order to secure them from hell or pur- 
gatory.'. So rapidly and alarmingly was the Church in 
France becoming rich, that King Chilperic passed a law 
annulling all testaments in which the Church was con- 
stituted heir; but Gunthran, not long after, repealed 
the sacrilegious statute, and these murderous and adul- 
terous and barbarous kings and nobles were again ena- 
bled to die in peace, confident in the remission of their 
sins by the sacrifice of some portion of their plunder 
(the larger the offering the more secure) on the altar 
of God.” 

But the barbarous times which bestowed so lavishly 
were by no means disposed superstitiously to respect the 
property of the Church. It was often but late in life that 
the access of devotion came on, while through all the 
former part, either by right of conquest, by terror, or 
by bribery, the barbarian had not scrupled to seize back 
consecrated land. Even kings were obliged to ratify 
and solemnize their own grants by synods or by nation- 
al assemblies.2 The deepening of the imprecations ut- 


1 Gesta Francorum. Planck, ii. 199. 

2 All the laws acknowledged the right of alienating some portion from 
the rightful heir, ‘‘ pro remedio anime,’’ or “in remissionem peccatorum.”’ 
There are legal formule in Marculf to this effect. Some codes, however, 
prohibited the absolute disinheritance of the right heir for the good of the 
church. Eichhorn, p. 359: compare 363 et seq. 

8 In a synod at Valence, King Gunthran demanded the ratification of 


Cuap. V. BARBARIC CRIMINAL LAW. Bot 


tered by these synods against robbers of the Church 
shows their necessity. These lands began to be guarded 
by all the terrors of superstition; wild legends every- 
where spread of the awful and miraculous punishments 
which had fallen on such offenders.1. In afew centu- 
ries the deliverer of Europe from the Mahommedan 
yoke, Charles Martel, was plunged into hell, and re- 
vealed in his torments to the eyes of men, as a standing 
and awful witness to the inexpiable sin of sacrilege. 

The property of the Church as yet enjoyed no im- 
munity from taxation. Gradually special exemptions 
were granted. At length the manse of the church (a 
certain small farm or estate) was entirely relieved from 
the demands of the state. Even the claim to absolute 
freedom from contribution to the public expenses was of 
a much later period.” 

C. The criminal law of the barbaric codes tended 
more and more to the commutation of crime OY gyiminal law 
injury for a pecuniary mulct. High treason °Pabarans 
alone, compassing the death of the King, corresponding 
with the enemies of the realm, or introducing them 
within its frontier, was generally a capital crime. Yet 
in the Visigothic code the capital punishment of treason 
could be commuted for putting out the eyes, 1... tombara. 
shaving the hair, scourging, perpetual impris- * Yi! 
onment, or exile, with confiscation and attainder, and in 


all the gifts which he, his wife, and daughters had bestowed on the church. 
All plunderers of this property “‘anathemate perpetui judicii divini plec- 
tendi atque supplicii «terni obnoxii tenendi sunt.” King Dagobert 
confirmed his legacies in a parliament, the legacies which he had be- 
queathed “‘memor malorum que gesserit.’’— Planck, 203. 

1 Gregory of Tours is full of such tales. 

2 Planck, ii. ch. vii. King Chlotaire, in 540, demanded a third part of 
the revenue of the church as an extraordinary loan. — Greg. Tur. iv. 2. 


δ98 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


this case the criminal could not make over his property 
to the Church.! Such donations were void. But of 
all crimes the King had power of pardon with the con- 
sent of the clergy and the great officers of his palace. 
The Bavarian law adds sedition in the camp to acts of 
treason, but even this might be forgiven by the royal 
mercy.2. As to other crimes, except adultery and in- 
cest, it was Teutonic usage, not Christian humanity, 
which abrogated the punishment of death. In the Bur- 
gundian law homicide is still a capital crime ; but grad- 
ually the life of every man below the King is assessed, 
according to his rank, at a certain value, and the wehr- 
geld may be received in atonement for his blood.? 
Even the sacred persons of the clergy had their price, 
which rises in proportionate amount with their power 
and influence. By the Bavarian law, should any one 
kill a bishop lawfully chosen,‘ a tunic of lead was to be 
fitted to the person of the bishop, and the commutation 
for his murder was as much gold as that tunic weighed : 
if the gold was not to be had, the same value in money, 
slaves, houses, or land; if the offender had none of 
these, he was sold into slavery. Nor was it life only 
which was thus valued; every wound and mutilation of 
each particular member of the body was carefully regis- 
tered in the code, and estimated according as the man 
was noble, freeman, slave, or in holy orders. The slave 
alone was still liable to capital punishment for certain 


1 Lex Visigoth. vi. 1, 2. 

2 “Ht ille homo qui hec commisit benignum imputet regem aut ducem si 
ei vitam concesserit.’’ — Lex Bavar. ii. iv. 3. 

8 Parricide alone, by the Visigothic law, was punished by the same death 
as that inflicted. 

4“Si quis episcopum quem constituit rex, vel populus elegit.’”” — Lex 
Bavar. xi. 1. 


παρ. Υ. THE CHURCH AN ASYLUM. 539 


offences ;!_ the Visigothic code condemned him to be 
burned.2. Torture was not only, according to Roman 
usage, to be applied to slaves, but even to freemen in 
certain cases.? 

The privilege of asylum within the Church is recog- 
nized in most of the barbaric codes.*+ It is asserted in 
the strongest terms, and in terms impregnated with true 
Christian humanity, that there is no crime which may 
not be pardoned from the fear of God and reverence ἔοι 
the saints.®> As yet perhaps the awe of the Christian 
altar only arrested justice in its too hasty and vindictive 
march, and in these wild times gave at least a tempo- 
rary respite, for the innocent victim to obtain liberty 
that he might plead his cause against the fierce popu- 
lace or the exasperated ruler, for the man of doubtful 
guilt to obtain a fair trial, or for the real criminal to 
suffer only the legal punishment for his offence. As 
yet the priest could not shield the heimous criminal. 
By the Visigothic code he was compelled to surrender 
the homicide.6 With the ruder barbarians the sanctity 
of holy places came in aid of the sacerdotal authority ; 
and in those savage times no doubt the notion that it 
was treason against God to force even the most flagrant 
criminal from his altar, protected many innocent lives, 
and retarded the precipitancy even of justice itself.’ 


1 Or scourging, for theft, by the Burgundian law. — iv. 2. 

2 Lex Visigoth. iii. iv. 14. 

8 Lex Visigoth. vi. 1, 2, ii. iv. 4. 

4 On the subject of asylum, compare the excellent dissertation of Paolo 
Sarpi, De jure Asylorum. — Opera, iv. p. 191. 

5 “ Nulla sit culpa tam gravis, ut non remittatur, propter timorem Dei et 
reverentiam sanctorum.’’ —Lex Bayar. vii. 3. It was an axiom of the Ro- 
man law, ‘‘Templorum cautela non nocentibus sed lesis datur a lege.” — 
Justin. Novell. xvii. 7. 

6 Lex Visigoth. vi. v. 16. 

7 See Greg. Tur. vii. 19; iv. 18. 


δ40 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


The right was constantly infringed by violent kings. or 
rulers, but rarely without strong remonstrance from the 
clergy ; and terrible legends were spread abroad of the 
awful punishments which befell the violators of the 
sanctuary! 

Already, in the earliest codes, appears the abroga- 
tion of the ordinary tribunals of justice by appeal to 
arms, and to the judgment of God: even the Bur- 
gundian law admits the trial by battle.? 

The ordeal is a superstition of all nations and of 
all ages. God is summoned to bear miraculous witness 
in favor of the innocent, to condemn the guilty.2 The 
Ripuarian law admits the trial by fire,* the Visigothic 
by redhot iron.® The Church, at a later period, took 
the ordeal under its especial sanction. There was a 
solemn ritual for the ceremony.® It took place in the 
church. The scalding water, the redhot iron, or the 
ploughshare were placed in the porch of the church 

1 Restrictions were placed on this undefined right. In a capitular of 779 
—“ Homicide et cteri rei, qui mori debent legibus, si ad ecclesiam con- 
fugerint, non excusentur, neque eis ibidem victus detur.”” 

2 Tit. xlv. 

3 Compare Calmet and Grotius on Numbers v. 31, for the instances from 
classical antiquity. Pliny and Solinus mention two rivers, which either by 
scalding or blinding, detected perjury. —H. N. xxxi, cap. xviii. 2. 

Ἦμεν δ᾽ ἔτοιμοι καὶ μύδρους αἴρειν χεροῖν, 

καὶ πῦρ διέρπειν, καὶ ϑεοὺς ὀρκωμοτεῖν, 

τὸ μῆτε δρᾶσαι, μῆτε τῳ ξυνειδέναι 

τὸ πρᾶγμα βουλεύσαντι μῆτ᾽ εἰργασμένῳ. 
Sophocl. Antig. 264. 


“ἘΠ medium freti pietate per ignem 
Cultores multé premimus vestigia pruna.” 
Virg Eneid. xi. 787. 
4 Tit. xxx. 
5 Lex Visigoth. vi. 1, 3. See the very curious note of Canciani, and 
quotation from the Constitutions of Baeca on this passage. 
6 See the very remarkable ritual in Canciani, ii. 453. 


Cuap. V. THE ORDEAL. 541 


and sprinkled with holy-water. All the most awful 
mysteries of religion were celebrated to give greater 
terror and solemnity to the rite. Invention was taxed 
to discover new forms of appeal to the Deity; swear- 
ing on the Gospels, on the altar, on the relics, on the 
host; plunging into a pool of cold water, he who 
swam was guilty, he who sunk innocent; they were 
usually held by a cord. There were ordeals by hot 
water, by hot iron, by walking over live coals or burn- 
ing ploughshares.t_ This seems to have been the more 
august ceremony for queens and empresses— under- 
gone by one of Charlemagne’s wives, our own Queen 
Emma, the Empress Cunegunda. The ordeal went 
down to a more homely test, the being able to swallow 
consecrated bread and cheese. 

The new crimes which the Christianity of these ages 
had introduced into the penal code of the Empire found 
their place in the barbaric codes. At first, indeed, 
they were left to the cognizance of the clergy, and to 
be visited by ecclesiastical penalties. The Arianism 
of the primitive Teutonic converts compelled the toler- 
ation of the laws, and retained a kind of dread of 
touching on such subjects in the earlier codes; but in 
proportion as the ecclesiastics became co-legislators, 


1 The ordeal was condemned in later days by many popes as tempting 
God: by Alexander II., Stephen X., Honorius III. Muratori thought that 
it was abolished in the twelfth century. Canciani quotes later instances. 
That of Savonarola, a real ordeal, might suffice. Eyen Canciani seems to 
look back upon it with some lingering respect: “‘ Ego reor Deo Opt. Max. 
plus placuisse majorum nostrorum simplicitatem et fidem quam recentio- 
rum sapientum acutissimam philosophiam.’’ — Vol. ii. p. 293. Greg. Tu- 
ron. de Martyr. 69, 70. All the ritualists, Martene, Mabillon, Ducange, 
under the different words, Muratori in two dissertations, one on the ordeal, 
one on duel, furnish ample citations. Almost all, however, are later than 
‘hese primitive barbaric laws. 


542 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book III. 


heresies became civil crimes, and liable to civil punish- 
ments. The statutes of the orthodox Visigothic kings, 
so terrible against the Jews, were not more merciful to 
heretics. The Franks were from the first the army of 
orthodoxy ; heretics were traitors to the state, as well 
as rebels against the Church, confederates of hostile 
Visigoths, or Burgundians, or Lombards. 

Witchcraft was a crime condemned by the Visi- 
gothic law.? Its overt acts were causing storms, invo- 
cation of demons, offering nightly sacrifices to devils. 
The punishment was 200 stripes, and shaving the 
head. Consulting soothsayers concerning the death 
of the King was punished in a freeman by stripes and 
confiscation of property, and perpetual servitude : wiz- 
ards guilty of poisoning suffered death. 

III. But external to and independent of the Im- 
perial Law and the constitutions of the new western 
kingdoms was growing up the jurisprudence of the 
Church, commensurate with the Roman world, or 
rather with Christendom. Every inhabitant. of the 
Christian empire, or of a Christian kingdom, was sub- 
ject to this second jurisdiction, which even by the 
sentence of outlawry which it pronounced against 
heretics, assumed a certain dominion over those who 
vainly endeavored to emancipate themselves from its 
yoke. The Church as little admitted the right of sects 
to separate existence, as the empire would endure the 
establishment of independent kingdoms or republics 
within its actual pale. Of this peculiar jurisprudence 
of the Church the clergy were at once the legislature 


1 Laws of Recared, xii. 2, 1. 
2 Lex Visigoth. vi. 2,3. There was a singular provision against judges, 
zonsulting diviners in order to detect witches. 


Crap. Υ͂. ECCLESIASTICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 548 


and the executive. This double power tended more 
and more to concentration. In the State all power 
resided in the Emperor alone; the unity of the empire 
under a monarch inevitably tended to that of the 
Church under one visible head. As the clergy more 
and more withdrew itself into a privileged order, so 
the bishops withdrew from the clergy, the Metropoli- 
tans rose above the bishops, and the Bishop of Rome 
aspired to supreme and sole spiritual empire. _ Had 
Rome remained the capital of the whole world, the 
despotism, however it might have suffered a perpetual 
collision with the imperial power, ruling in the Eternal 
City, would probably have become, as far as ecclesias- 
tical dignity, an acknowledged autocracy. A people 
habituated for centuries to arbitrary authority in civil 
affairs would be less likely to question it in religion. 
The original independence of the Christian character 
which induced the first converts in the strength of 
their faith to secede from the manners and usages as 
well as the religious rites of the world, to form self- 
governed republics, as it were, within the social system 
—this noble liberty had died away as Christianity 
became a hereditary, an established, an universal re- 
ligion. Obedience to authority was inveterate in the 
Roman mind; reverence for law had sunk into obedience 
to despotic power; arbitrary rule seemed the natural 
condition of mankind. This unrepining, unmurmur- 
ing servility could not be goaded by intolerable taxation 
to resistance. Nothing less than religious difference 
could stir the mind into oppugnancy, and this differ- 
ence was chiefly concentred in the clergy: when a 
heretic was in power the orthodox, when the orthodox 
the heretic, alone asserted liberty of action or of 


544 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


thought. In all other respects the law of the Church, 
as enacted by the clergy, was received with implicit 
submission. In the provinces, as the Presidents, or 
Prefects, or Counts, in their regular gradation of dig- 
nity, ruled with despotic sway, yet were but the repre- 
sentatives of the remote and supreme central power, so 
the Bishops, Metropolitans, Patriarchs rose above each 
other, and culminated, as it were, to some distant point 
of unity. The Patriarchates had been fixed in the 
greatest cities of Europe, Asia, and Africa. These 
were the seats likewise of the highest provincial govern- 
ments; the other chief provincial cities were usually 
the seats of local administration, and of the metropolitan 
sees; and so the stream of public business, civil and 
ecclesiastical, was perpetually flowmg to the same 
centre. It was at once the place at which all that re- 
mained, the shadow, as it were, of the old popular 
assemblies, as well as the ecclesiastical synods, were 
convened ; appeals came thither from all quarters, 
imperial mandates were issued to the province or 
theme. On this principle Constantinople continued 
still to rise in influence; Alexandria for above a cen- 
tury resisted, but resisted in vain, the advancement of 
the upstart unapostolic See. The new Rome asserted 
her Roman dignity against the East, while on every 
favorable opportunity she raised up claims to indepen- 
dence, to equality, even to superiority, against the elder 
Rome, now a provincial city of the Justinian empire. 
Rome was the sole Patriarchate of the West, the 
head and centre of Latin Christianity. Rome stood 
alone, almost without rival or reclamation. Raven- 
na, as the seat of empire under the exarchs, might 
aspire to independence, to equality; her pretensions 


Cuap. V. ROME THE CENTRAL POWER. 545 


were soon put down by her own impotence and by 
common opinion. Wherever the Latin language was 
spoken there was no rival to the supremacy of Romer 
The African churches, distracted by the Donatists, 
oppressed and persecuted by the Arian Vandals, re- 
vived but as the churches of a province of the Eastern 
empire. Carthage was still one of the great cities of 
the world, her bishop the acknowledged head of the 
churches in Africa. But the African Church, though 
obedient to the East, after Justinian’s conquest, and 
Just emerging into ascendency over the Arians, had 
neither ambition nor strength to assert independence. 
Of the Teutonic kingdoms founded within the ancient 
realm of Rome, three had been destroyed during the 
sixth century, those of the Ostrogoths in Italy, of the 
Vandals in Africa, of the Burgundians in France. 
Of the four which survived, the Lombard was still 
Arian, the Anglo-Saxon was heathen and not yet con- 
solidated into one kingdom; those of the Visigoths in 
Spain and of the Franks in Gaul, if still of uncertain 
boundaries, and frequently subdivided in different pro- 
portions, accepted the supremacy of Rome as part of 
the Catholicism to which one had returned after a long 
apostacy, with all the blind and ardent zeal of a new 
proselyte; the other, whose war-cry of conquest had 
been the Catholic faith, would bow down in awe-struck 
adoration before the head of that faith. The Latin 
clergy, who had made common cause with the Franks, 
would inculcate this awe as the most powerful auxil- 
lary to their own dominion. 

In the West the state of ecclesiastical affairs tended 
constantly to elevate the actual power of the single 
Patriarchate. The election of the bishops in the Ro- 


VOL. I. 35 


546 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book III. 


man provinces and in the new Teutonic kingdoms was 
in the clergy and the people. Strife constantly arose ; 
the worsted party looked abroad for aid; if they found 
it not with the Metropolitan, they sought still further ; 
and as the provincial of old appealed to Rome against 
the tyranny of the civil governor, so the clergy against 
the bishop, the bishop against the Metropolitan. ‘They 
fled in the last resort to what might seem to be an im- 
partial, at least might be a favorable tribunal. 

But throughout these kingdoms there was another 
whe Clergy Strong bond to Rome — the common interest 
Tatin. of the Latin part of the community against 
the foreign and Teutonic. The old Roman aristocracy 
of the provinces, except in some municipal towns, per- 
ished or were degraded from their station by the new 
military aristocracy of the conquerors. But the clergy 
could not but continue, it has been seen that they 
did continue, for a considerable period to be Roman. 
They were thus a kind of peaceful force, bound to- 
gether by common descent, and still looking to Rome 
as their parent. Nothing is known of the Arian clergy 
who accompanied the Goths, the Vandals, or the Lom- 
bards, and kept up the tradition of the heterodox faith, 
whether they too were chiefly Roman, or had begun to 
be barbarian.! The rare collisions which are recorded, 
the general toleration, except among the Vandals in 

1Jn the Collatio Episcoporum, where Avitus of Vienne challenged the 
Arian clergy to bring their conflicting doctrines to the issue of a public 
disputation, the head of the Arian clergy is named Boniface. The Arians 
(it is a Catholic account) were struck dumb, or replied only in unmeaning 
clamors; one sentence alone betrays the ground they took; they stood on 
the Scripture alone; the Catholics were prestigiatores; did they mean 
workers of false miracles? ‘‘ Sufficere sibi se habere scripturam, que sit 


fortior omnibus prestigiis.’’ The conference was in the year 419. — D’Ach- 
ery, iii. p. 304. 


Crap. V. ROME THE CENTRAL POWER. OAT 


Africa, might lead to the conclusion that they were the 
Teutonic clergy of a Teutonic people, each contentedly 
worshipping apart from each other, as under its sepa- 
rate law, so under its separate religion, until the superior 
intelligence, the more ardent activity of the orthodox 
Latins, brought over first the kings and nobles, as Re- 
cared in Spain and the later Lombard kings, afterwards 
the people, to the unity of the Church. The toleration 
of the Arians, and even writers like Orosius admit that 
in Gaul the Goths and Burgundians treated the ortho- 
dox Christians as brothers, was, after all, but indiffer- 
ence, or ignorance that there was another form of 
Christianity besides that which they had been taught.1 
It was more often that the Catholics provoked than 
suffered persecution wantonly inflicted.2. That submis- 
sion which the Roman paid to the clergy out of his 
innate and inveterate deference for law, if not from 
servility, arose in the Teuton partly from his inherent 
awe of the sacerdotal character, partly from his con- 
scious inferiority in intellectual acquirements.? No 
doubt already the Latin of the ordinary Church ser- 
vices had become, and naturally became more and 
more, a sacred language.* The Gothic version of the 


1 Orosius, vii. 33. There was a kind of persecution of some bishops in 
Aquitaine. — Sidon. Apoll. vii. 6. Modaharius the Goth, a citizen, not a 
clergyman, is named by Sidonius — The name sounds like Latinized Teu- 
tonism. Of Euric, Sidonius says, “ Pectori suo catholici mentio nominis 
acet.”” At this time the bishoprics of Bordeaux and eight others were 
vacant, no clergy ordained, the churches in ruins, herds pasturing on the 
grass-grown altars. 

2 See on the confederacy of the orthodox bishops in Burgundy with the 
Franks, ch. ii. 

8 Compare Paullus Diaconus on the conversion of the Lombards, iv. 44. 

4 I cannot refrain from quoting the observations of a modern writer: — 
“ Christianity offered itself, and was accepted by the German tribes, as a law 
and as a discipline, as an ineffable, incomprehensible mystery. Its fruits 


548 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


Scriptures was probably confined to that branch of the 
nation for which it had been made by Ulphilas: it could 
not have been disseminated widely. The Latin clergy, 
even if they had the will, could not, durmg the for- 
mation of the various dialects or languages which grew 
up in Europe, have translated the sacred books or the 
services of the Church into the ever-shifting and blend- 
ing dialects. Till languages grew up, recognized as 
their own by nations, there could be no claim to a ver- 
nacular Bible or a vernacular Liturgy. Latin would 
establish a strong prescription, a prescription, in fact, 
of centuries; and that, as on the one hand it would 
tend to keep the clerical office chiefly in the hands of 
those of Latin descent, would likewise preserve the 
unity of which the centre was Rome.1 

Rome throughout this period is still standing in more 
lonely preéminence: from various circumstances, per- 
haps from the continually shifting boundaries of the 
kingdoms, the Metropolitan power, especially in Gaul, 
only centuries later, if ever, assumed its full weight. 
On the other hand, that of the bishops over the infe- 
rior clergy became throughout the western kingdoms 
more arbitrary and absolute. The bishop stands alone, 
the companion and counsellor of kings and nobles, the 


were, righteousness by works (Werkheiligkeit), and belief in the dead 
word. But in a barbarous people it is an immense advance, an unappreci- 
able benefit. Ritual observance is a taming, humiliating process; it is 
submission to law; it is the acknowledgment of spiritual inferiority; it 
implies self-subjection, self-conquest, self-sacrifice. It is not religion in its 
highest sense, but it is the preparation for it.’’— Ritter, Geschich., Christ. 
Philos. i. p. 40. 

1 Planck supposes that for half a century after the conversion of the 
Franks the bishops were, without exception, Latin; about 566 appears a 
Meroveus, Bishop of Poitiers. —Greg. Tur. ix. 40; Planck, ii. 96. In the 
eighth century the clergy were chiefly from the servile class. — p. 199. 


Cuar. V. GROWTH OF EPISCOPAL PREEMINENCE. 549 


judge, the ruler; the College of Presbyters, the ad- 
visers, the codrdinate power with the bishop, has en- 
tirely disappeared. It is rarely at this period that 
we discern in history the name of any one below the 
episcopal rank. Even in the legends of this age we 
scarcely find a saint who is not a bishop, or at least, 
and that as yet but rarely, an abbot.) The monas- 
teries at first claimed no exemption from the episcopal 
autocracy: they aspired not yet to be independent, 
self-governed republics. The primitive monks, laymen 
in every respect, would have shrunk from the awful 
assertion of superiority to the common law of subjec- 
tion. The earlier councils prohibited the foundation 
of a monastery, even of a solitary cell, without the 
permission of the bishop. , Gradually monks were or- 
dained, that the communities might no longer depend 
for the services of religion on the parochial clergy ; 
but this infringement on the profound humility of the 
monk was beheld with jealousy by the more rigid. St. 
Benedict admits it with reserve and caution. It was 
not till splendid monasteries were founded by relig- 
iously prodigal nobles, kings, and even prelates, and 
endowed with ample territories and revenues, that 
they were withdrawn from the universal subordination, 
received special privileges of exemption, became free 
communities under the protection of the King, or of 
the Pope.2 The lower clergy were in fact in great 
numbers ordained slaves, slaves which the Church did 
not choose at hazard from the general servile class, 
but from her own serfs, and who were thus trained to 


1 Planck, ii. 368. 
2 Compare M. Guizot, Civilisation Moderne, Lecon xv., who has traced 
‘he change, and cites the authorities with his usual sagacity and judgment. 


550 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III 
habits of homage and submission. The first Franks or 
Goths who entered into holy orders would hardly be 
tempted by a less prize, or stoop to a lower dignity, 
than that of a bishop, except as far as it might be 
necessary to pass rapidly through the lower orders. 
The clergy were so entirely under the power of the 
bishop that a Spanish council thinks it necessary 
and seemly to secure them from arbitrary blows and 
stripes. 

The ecclesiastical jurisprudence, therefore, was en- 
tirely, as well as the administration of the law in its 
more solemn form, in the bishops. They alone at- 
tended the synods or councils, they alone executed the 
decrees. Their mandate or their sanction was neces- . 
sary for every important act of religion. 

The whole penitential system was under their con- 
trol and rested on their authority. Private confession 
might be received, absolution for private offences be 
granted by the priest: public or notorious crimes could 
be remitted by the bishop alone. 

This ecclesiastical jurisprudence had its specific laws 
as ordinances for the government of the cler- 
gy; its more general statutes, which em- 
braced all mankind. Every man, barbarian or Roman, 
under whichever civil law he lived, freeman or slave, 
was amenable to this code, which had. the penitential 
system for its secondary punishment ; excommunica- 
tion, which in general belief, if the excommunicated 
died unreconciled, was tantamount to eternal perdition, 
for its capital punishment. The excommunication as 


Penitential 
system. 


1“ Ne passim unusquisque episcopus honorabilia membra sua presbyteros 
sive Levitas, prout voluerit et complacuerit, verberibus subjiciat et dolori.”’ 
— Syn. Bracar. iv. A.D. 675, can. 7. 


Crap. V. DELINQUENCIES OF THE CLERGY. 551 


yet was strictly personal: it had not grown into the 
interdict which smote a nation or a country. 

Of this twofold law, that over the clergy and 
that over the laity, the administration of the first was 
absolutely in the bishops —that of the second only 
more remotely, and in the last resort. The usual pen- 
alties were different. The sacred person of the priest 
had peculiar privations and penalties, in some respects 
more severe, in others more indulgent, chastisements. 
The attempt to reconcile the greater heinousness of the 
offence in the sinful priest with the respect for his 
order, led at times to startling injustice and contradic- 
tion.! 

The delinquent clerk might be deprived for a time 
of his power of administrating sacred things 3 peinguencies 
he might be thrown back, an unworthy and % ‘te cletsy. 
a despised outcast, into the common herd of men, or 
rather lower than the common herd (for the inefface- 
able ordination held him still in its trammels, in its re- 
sponsibility, though he had forfeited its distinctions and 
its privileges), but even then the mercy of the Church 
provided courses of penance more or less long and aus- 
tere, by which, in most cases, he might retrieve the 
past, and rise, to some at least, of his lost prerogatives. 
The monasteries, in later times, became a kind of penal 
settlements, where under strict provisions the exile 
might expiate his offences, work out the redemption of 
his guilt, if not permitted to return to the world, at 


1 Throughout the Penitentials, the penalties are heavier on the clergy 
than the laity. For murder, a clerk did penance for ten years, three on 
oread and water; a layman three, one on bread and water. The clergy 
too were punished according to their rank, where one in inferior orders has 
3ix, a deacon has seyen, a priest ten, a bishop twelve years penance. —Mo- 
rinus. 


oan LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox III. 


least die in peace; at all events his degradation was 
concealed from a babbling and censorious world. 

The law administered by the clergy, throughout the 
Of the rest Christian polity, comprehended every moral 
munity. or religious act ; and what act of man could 
be beyond that wide and undefined boundary ἡ What- 
ever the Church, whatever the individual clergyman, 
declared to be sin (the appeal even to the bishop was 
difficult and remote), was sin. The timid conscience 
would rarely dare to judge for itself: the judge there- 
fore was at once the legislator, the expounder of the 
law, the executioner of the law.! 

This law had its capital punishment — excommuni- 
cation, which absolutely deprived of spiritual life. Ex- 
communication, in its more solemn form, was rarely 
pronounced by lower than bishops.?_ It was the weapon 
with which rival bishops encountered each other, which 
they reserved for enemies of high rank. It was the 
sentence of Councils only which cut off whole sects 
from the communion of the Church. 

But excommunication in a milder form — the tem- 
porary or the enduring deprivation of those means of 
grace without which salvation was hopeless, the refusal 
of absolution, the key which alone opened the gates of 
heaven — was in the power of every priest: on his 
judgment, on his decree, hung eternal life, eternal death. 

1“Ttaque postquam criminum omnium occultorum poeena quibuslibet 
presbyteris concessa est, libelli Poenitentiales preter canones conditi sunt in 
quibus hee omnia distincte in simpliciorum presbyterorum gratiam et ne- 
cessariam instructionem enarrabantur, ut pcenitentiarum imponendarum 
officio defungi possent.’” —Morinus. This work of Morinus de Peenitentia 
affords ample and accurate knowledge on the history of the Penitential 
law, and of the different penitentials which prevailed in the Western 
churches. 


2 Public penance was at first only adjudged by the bishops. — Sirmond- 
de Pcenit. Public.; Opera, vol. iy. 


Cap. V. THE PENITENTIALS. 5d8 


But though this, like all despotic irresponsible power, 
or power against which the mass of mankind had no 
refuge, was liable to abuse, was often no doubt abused, 
it was still constantly counteracted by the Penitentials 
which as wisely (lest men should break the yoke in 
utter despair) as mercifully, were provided by the relig- 
ious code of Christianity. The Penitentials were part 
of the Christian law; how early part of the written 
law, is not quite clear; nor were they uniform, or in 
fact established by any universal or central authority — 
that of Pope or Council ;1 but they were not the less 
an admitted customary or common law, a perpetual 
silent control on the arbitrary power of the individual 
priest, a guarantee as it were to the penitent, that if he 
faithfully submitted to the appointed discipline, he 
could not be denied the inappreciable absolution. The 
Penitentials thus, by regulating the sacerdotal power, 
confirmed it; that which might have seemed a hard 
capricious exaction became a privilege; the mercies of 
the law were indissolubly bound up with its terrors. 
However severe, monastic; unchristian, as enjoining 
self-torture ; degrading to human nature, as substitut- 
ing ceremonial observance for the spirit of religion ; 
debasing instead of wisely humiliating ; and resting in 
outward forms which might be counted and calculated 
(so many hours of fasting, so many blows of the 
scourge, SO many prayers, so many pious ejaculations, 
for each offence) yet as enforcing, it might be, a rude 
and harsh discipline, it was still a moral and religious 
discipline. It may have been a low, timid, dependent 


1 The three oldest were the Penitentials of Archbishop Theodore of Can- 
terbury, of Bede, and the Roman. That of Rabanus Maurus obtained in 
Germany. — Morinus. 


δδ4 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boox IIL. 


virtue to which it compelled the believer, yet still vir- 
tue. It was a perpetual proclamation of the holiness 
and mercy of the Gospel. It was a constant preaching, 
on one hand, it might be of an unenlightened, super- 
stitious Christianity, but still of Christianity. Yet, on 
the other hand, it was a recognition of a divine law, 
submission to a religion which might not be defied, 
which would not be eluded —a religion which would 
not deny its hopes to the worst, but would have at least 
resolutions, promises of amendment — the best security 
which it could obtain — from the unreasoning and fal- 
lible nature of man. It aspired at least to effect that 
which no human law could do, which baffled alike im- 
perial and barbaric legislation, to impose constraint.on 
the unchristian passions and dispositions. When sacer- 
dotal religion was, if not necessary, salutary at least to 
mankind, it was the great instrument by which the 
priesthood ruled the mind of man. If it increased the 
wealth of the clergy, it was wealth much of which 
lawless possessors, spoilers, robbers, had been forced to 
regorge. If it invested them with an authority as 
dangerous to themselves as to the world, that authority 
was better than moral anarchy. However adminis- 
tered, it was still law, and Christian law, grounded on 
the eternal principles of justice, humanity, and truth. 


1 It will hereafter appear in our History how the penitential system 
degenerated into commutations for penance by alms (alms being only part 
of the penan¢e, compensated for prayer), fasting, and other religious obsery- 
ances; alms regulated indeed by the rank and wealth of the transgressor, 
but with full expiatory value; commutations became indulgences; indul- 
gences, first the remission of certain penitential acts, then general remissions 
of sins for definite periods, at length for periods almost approximating to 
_ eternity; and these for the easiest of religious duties, visits to a certain 

church, above all ample donations. , 


END OF VOL. I. 


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